Eminent Victorians

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EMINENT VICTORIANS

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EMINENT VICTORIANS

CARDINAL MANNING - FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE
DR. ARNOLD - GENERAL GORDON

liY

LYTTON STRACHEY

LONDON

CHATTO a WINDUS

Fir^t published g . . May y, 1918.

Second Impresdon , May, 1918.
Third ImprJsion % July, 1918.
Fourth Imdession • August, 1918.
P'ijth ImdessUm . September, 1918.
Sixth Impression . October, 1918.
Seven^fy Impression . December, 1918.

XN BmLAHD B1 W^LLUV C9XX>WB8 AKD SONS, LtUttBB
LONDON AND BX0GLB8

All fighU reserved

TC*

H. T. J. N.

PREFACE

The history of the Victorian Age will never be written: we
know too much about it. For ignorance is the first requisite
of the historian — ignorance, which simplifies and clarifies,
which selects and omits, with a placid perfection unattainable
by the highest art. Concerning the Age which has just passed,
our fathers and our grandfathers have poured forth and
accumulated so vast a quantity of information that the industry
of a Ranke would be submerged by it, and the perspicacity of
a Gibbon would quail before it. It is not by the direct method
of a scrupulous narration that the explorer of the past can
hope to depict that singular epoch. If he is wise, he will adopt
a subtler strategy. He will attack his subject in unexpected
places ; he will fall upon the flank, or the rear ; he will shoot a
sudden, revealing searchlight into obscure recesses, hitherto
undivined. He will row out over that great ocean of material,
and lower down into it, here and there, a little bucket, which
will bring up to the light of day some characteristic specimen,
from those far depths, to be examined with a careful curiosity.
Guided by these considerations, I have written the ensuing
studies. I have attempted, through the medium of biography,
to present some Victorian visions to the modern eye. They
are, in one sense, haphazard visions — that is to say, my choice
of subjects has been determined by no desire to construct a
system or to prove a theory, but by simple motives of conveni-
ence and of art. It has been my purpose to illustrate rather
than to explain. It would have been futile to hope to tell even

viii

PREFACE

a jyrkis of the truth about the Victorian age, for the shortest
'prk\s must fill innumerable volumes. But, in the lives of an
ecclesiastic, an educational authority, a woman of action, and a
man of adventure, I have sought to examine and elucidate
certain fragments of the truth which took my fancy and lay to
my hand.

I hope, however, that the following pages may prove to be
of interest from the strictly biographical no less than from the
historical point of view. Human beings are too important to
be treated as mere symptoms of the past. They have a value
which is independent of any temporal processes — which is
eternal, and must be felt for its own sake. The art of
biography seems to have fallen on evil times in England. We
have had, it is true, a few masterpieces, but we have never had,
like the French, a great biographical tradition ; we have had
no Fontenelles and Condorcets, with their incomparable iloges^
compressing into a few shining pages the manifold existences of
men. With us, the most delicate and humane of all the
branches of the art of writing has been relegated to the
journeymen of letters ; we do not reflect that it is perhaps as
difficult to write a good life as to live one. Those two fat
volumes, with which it is our custom to commemorate the
dead — who does not know them, with their ill-digested masses
of material, their slipshod style, their tone of tedious panegyric,
their .lamentable lack of selection, of detachment, of design?
They are as familiar as the cortege of the undertaker, and wear
the same air of slow, funereal barbarism. One is tempted to
suppose, of some ^f ., them, that they were composed by that
functionary, as the final item of his job. The studies in this
book are indebted, in more ways than one, to such works —
works which certainly deserve the name of Standard Biographies.
For they have provided me not only with much indispensable
information, but with something even more pr^idLq^us— an
example. How many lessons are to be learnt from them ! But
it is hardly necessary to particularise. To preserve, for instance,
a becoming brevity — a brevity which excludes everything that
is redundant and nothing that is significant — ^that, surely, is

PREFACE

ix

the first duty of the biographer. The second, no less surely, is
to maintain his own freedom of spirit. It is not his business to
be^complimentary ; it is his business to lay bare the facts of the
case, as he understands them. That is what I have aimed at
in this book — to lay bare the facts of some cases, as I under-
stand them, dispassionately, impartially, and without ulterior
intentions. To quote the words of a Master — ‘‘Je n’impose
rien ; je ne propose rien : j’expose.”

A list of tlie principal sources ftom which I have drawn is
appended to each Biography, I would indicate^ as an honourable
exception to the current commodity ^ Sir Edward CooUs excellent
‘‘ Life of Florence Nightingale^ without which my own study ^
though composed on a very different scale and from a decidedly
different angle^ could not have been written.

CONTENTS

CAKDINAL MANNING
FLOBENCB NIGHTINGALE
DR. ARNOLD

PAO>

1

117

181

215

THE BHD OF QBHEBAL OOBDON

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FAQE

CARDINAL MANNING Frontispiece

JOHN HENRY NEWMAN fetcinff 68

Reproduced from Ward*s Life of Newman^ Vy kind permission of
Messrs, Longmans t Oreen dt Co,

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE facing 119

Reproduced from, a photograph, by 7dnd permission of the owner.

DR. ARNOLD

Reproduced from a steel engraving in Stanley's Life of ArnoH,
by kind permission of Mr, John Murray.

facing 183

GENERAL GORDON

facing 217

MR. GLADSTONE focing 272

Reproduced from Gladstone's Correspondence on Church and
Religion, edited by />. C, Lathbury, by kind permission of Mr,

John Murray,

CARDINAL MANNING

CARDINAL MANNING

Henry Edward Manning was bom in 1807 and died in
1892. His life was extraordinary in many ways, but its
interest for the modern inquirer depends mainly upon two
considerations — the light which his career throws upon the
spirit of his age, and the psychological problems suggested
by his inner history. He belonged to that class of eminent
ecclesiastics — and it is by no means a small class — who have
been distinguished less for saintliness and learning than
for practical ability. Had he lived in the Middle Ages be
M'ould certainly have been neither a Francis nor an Aquinas,
but he might have been an Innocent. As it was, bom in
the England of the Nineteenth Century, growing up in the
very seed-time of modem progress, coming to maturity with
the first onrush of Liberalism, and living long enough to
witness the victories of Science and Democracy, he yet, by
a strange concatenation of circumstances, seemed almost to
revive in his own person that long line of diplomatic and
administrative clerics which, one would have thought,
had come to an end for ever w4th Cardinal Wolsey.
In Manning, so it appeared, the Middle Ages lived again
The tall gaunt figure, with the face of smiling asceticism,
the robes, and the biretta, as it passed in triumph from
High Mass at the Oratory to philanthropic gatherings at
Exeter Hall, from Strike Committees at the Docks to
Mayfair drawing-rooms where fashionable ladies knelt
to the Prince of the Church, certainly bore witness to a
singular condition of affairs. What had happened ?
Had a dominating character imposed itself upon a hostile
environment? Or was the Nineteenth Century, after
all, not sp hostile ? Was there something in it, scientific

3 B 2

4

. EMINENT VICTORIANS

and progressive as it was, which went out to welcome
the representative of ancient tradition and uncompromising
faitli ? Had it, perhaps, a place in its heart for such as
Manning — a soft place, one might almost say ? Or, on
the other hand, was it he who had been supple and yielding ?
he M'ho had won by art what he would never have won by
force, and who had managed, so to speak, to be one of the
leaders of the proeession less through nierit than through a
superior faculty for gliding adroitly to the front rank ?
And, in any case, by what odd chances, what shifts
and struggles, what combinations of circumstance and
character, had this old man come to be where he was ?
Such questions arc easier to ask than to answer ; but it
may be instructive, and even amusing, to look a little more
closely into the complexities of so curious a story.

I

Undoubtedly, what is most obviously striking in the
history of Manning’s career is the persistent strength of
his innate characteristics. Through all the changes of
his fortunes the powerful spirit of the man worked on
undismayed. It was as if the Fates had laid a wager that
they would daunt him ; and in the end they lost their
bet.

His father was a rich West India merchant, a governor
of the Bank of England, a Member of Parliament, who drove
into town every day from his country seat in a coach
and four, and was content with nothing short of a bishop
for the christening of his children. Little Henry, like the
rest, Iiad his bishop ; but he was obliged to wait for him —
for as long as eighteen months. In those days, and even
a generation later, as Keble bears witness, there was great
laxity in regard to the early baptism of children. The
delay has been noted by Manning’s biographer as the
first stumbling-block in the spirituial life of the future
Cardinal : but he surmounted it with success.

His father was more careful in other ways. ‘‘ His
refinement and delicacy of mind were such,” wrote Manning
long afterwards, that I never heard out of his mouth
a word which might not have been spoken in the presence
of the most pure and sensitive, — except,” he adds, on
one occasion. He was then forced by others to repeat
a negro story which, though free from all evil de sewu^
was indelicate. He did it with great resistance. His
example gave me a hatred of all such talk.” The family
lived in an atmosphere of Evangelical piety. One day
the little boy came in from the farmyard, and his mother

6 EMINENT VICTORIANS

asked him whether he had seen the peacock. “I said
yes, and the nurse said no, and my mother made me kneel
down and beg God to forgive me for not speaking the truth.”
At the age of four the child was told by a cousin of the age
of six that “ God had a book in which He wrote down every-
thing we did wrong. This so terrified me for days that
I remember being found by my mother sitting under a
kind of writing-table in great fear. I never forgot this at
any time in my life,” the Cardinal tells us, “ and it has
been a great grace to me.” When he was nine years old
he “ devoured the Apocalypse ; and I never all through
my life forgot the ‘ lake that bumeth with fire and brim-
stone.’ That verse has kept me like an audible voice
through all my life, and through worlds of danger in
my youth.”

At Harrow the worlds of danger were already around
him ; but yet he listened to the audible voice. “ At
school and college I never failed to say my prayers, so
far as memory serves me, even for a day.” And he \inder-
went another religious experience : he read Paley’s
Evidences. “ I took in the whole argument,” wrote
Manning, when he was over seventy, ” and I thank Gk)d
that nothing has ever shaken it.” Yet on the whole he led
the unspiritual life of an ordinary schoolboy. We have
glimpses of him as a handsome lad, playing cricket, or
strutting about in tasselled Hessian top-boots. And on
one occasion at least he gave proof of a certain dexterity
of conduct which deserved to be remembered. He went
out of boimds, and a master, riding by and seeing him on
the other side of a field, tied his horse to a gate, and ran
after him. The astute youth outran the master, fetched
a circle, reached the gate, jumped on to the horse’s back
and rode off. For this he was very properly chastised ;
but of what use was chastisement ? No whipping, however
severe, could have eradicated from little Henry’s mind
a quality at least as firmly planted in it as his fear of Hell
and his bdief in the arguments of Paley.

CARDINAL MANNING

7

It had been his father’s wish that Manning should go
into the Church ; but the thought disgusted him ; and
when he reached Oxford, his tastes, his ambitions, his
successes at the Union, all seemed to mark him out for
a political career. He was a year junior to Samuel
Wilberforce, and a year senior to Gladstone. In those
days the Union was the recruiting-ground for young
politicians ; Ministers came down from London to listen
to the debates ; and a few years later the Duke of Newcastle
gave Gladstone a pocket borough on the strength of his
speech at the Union against the Reform Bill. To those
three young men, indeed, the whole world lay open.
Were they not rich, well-connected, and endowed with
an infinite capacity for making speeches ? The event
justified the highest expectations of their friends ; for the
least distinguished of the three died a bishop. The only
danger lay in another direction. “ Watch, my dear
Samuel,” wrote the elder W^ilberforce to his son, “ watch
with jealousy whether you find yourself unduly solicitous
about acquitting yourself ; whether you are too much
chagrined when you fail, or are puffed up by your success.
Undue solicitude about popular estimation is a weakness
against which all real Christians must guard with the most
jealous watchfulness. The more you can retain the im-
pression of your being surrounded by a cloud of witnesses
of the invisible world, to use the scripture phrase, the more
you will be armed against this besetting sin.” But
suddenly it seemed as if such a warning could, after all,
have very little relevance to Manning ; for, on his leaving
Oxford, the brimming cup was dashed from his lips. He
was already beginning to dream of himself in the House
of Commons, the solitary advocate of stane great cause
whose triumph was to be eventually brought about by
his extraordinary efforts, when his father 'was declared
a bankrupt, and all his hopes of a political career came
to an end f^r ever.

It was at this time that Manning became intimate

8

EMINENT VICTORIANS

with a pious lady, the sister of one of his College friends,
whom he used to describe as his Spiritual Mother. He
made her his confidante ; and one day, as they walked
together in the shrubbery, he revealed the bitterness of
the disappointment into which his father’s failure had
plunged him. She tried to cheer lum, and then she added
that there were higher aims open to him which he had not
considered. “ What do you mean ? ” he asked. “ The
kingdom of Heaven,” she answered ; “ heavenly ambitions
are not closed against you.” The young man listened,
was silent, and said at last that he did not know but she was
right. She suggested reading the Bible together; and
they accordingly did so during the whole of that Vacation,
every morning after breakfast. Yet, in spite of these
devotional exercises, and in spite of a voluminous corre-
spondence on religious subjects with his Spiritual Mother,
Manning still continued to indulge in secular hopes. He
entered the Colonial Office as a supernumerary clerk,
and it was only when the offer of a Merton Fellowship
seemed to depend upon his taking orders that his heavenly
ambitions began to assume a definite shape. Just then
he fell in love with Miss Deffell, whose father would have
nothing to say to a young man without prospects, and
forbade him the house. It was only too true ; what
were the prospects of a supernumerary clerk in the Colonial
Office ? Manning went to Oxford and t’opk orders. He
was elected to the Merton fellowship, and obtained through
the influence of the Wilbcrforces a curacy in Sussex.
At the last moment he almost drew back. “ I think the
whole step has been too precipitate,” he wrote to his
brother-in-law. “ I have rather allowed the instance of
my friends, and the allurements of an agreeable curacy
in many respects, to get the better of my sober judgment,”
His vast ambitions, his dreams of public service, of honours,
and of power, was all this to end in a little country curacy
“ agreeable in many respects ” ? But there was nothing
for it ; the deed was done ; and the Fates had apparently

CARDINAL MANNING

9

succeeded very effectively in getting rid of Manning.
All he could do was to make the best of a bad business.
Accordingly, in the first place, he decided that he had
received a call from God “ ad veritatem et ad seipsum ” ;
and, in the second, forgetting Miss Deffell, he married his
rector’s daughter. Within a few months the rector died,
and Manning stepped into his shoes : and at least it could
be said that the shoes were not uncomfortable. For
the next seven years he fulfilled the functions of a country
clergyman. He was energetic and devout ; he was polite
and handsome; his fame grew in the diocese. At last
he began to be spoken of as the probable successor to
the old Archdeacon of Chichester. When Mrs. Manning
prematurely died, he was at first inconsolable, but he found
relief in the distraction of redoubled work. How could he
have guessed that one day he would come to number that
loss among “ God’s special mercies ” ? Yet so it was to
be. In after years, the memory of his wife seemed to be
blotted from his mind; he never spoke of her; every
letter, every record, of his married life he destroyed;
and when word was sent to him that her grave was falling
into ruin : “ It is best so,” the Cardinal answered ; “ let
it be. Time effaces all things.” But, when the grave
was yet fresh, the young Rector would sit beside it, day
after day, writing his sermons.

II

In the meantime a series of events was taking place in
another part of England, which was to have a no less
profound effect upon Manning’s history than the merciful
removal of his wife. In the same year in which he took
up his Sussex curacy, the Tracts for the Times had begun
to appear at Oxford. The “ Oxford Movement,” in fact,
had started on its course. The phrase is still familiar;
but its meaning has become somewhat obscured both
by the lapse of time and the intrinsic ambiguity of the
subjects connected with it. Let us borrow for a moment
the wings of Historic Imagination, and, hovering lightly
over the Oxford of the thirties, take a rapid bird’s-eye
view.

For many generations the Church of England had slept
the sleep of the . . . comfortable. The sullen murmurings
of dissent, the loud battle-cry of Revolution, had hardly
disturbed her slumbers. Portly divines subscribed with a
sigh or a smile to the Thirty-nine Articles, sank quietly into
easy livings, rode gaily to hounds of a morning as gentlemen
should, and, as gentlemen should, carried their two bottles
of an evening. To be in the Church was in fact simply to
pursue one of those professions which Nature and Society
had decided were proper to gentlemen and gentlemen
alone. The fervours of piety, the zeal of Apostolic charity,
the enthusiasm of self-renunciation — ^these things were
all very well in their way — and in their place ; but their
place was certainly not the Church of England. Gentlemen
were neither fervid nor zealous, and above all they were
not enthusiastic. There were, it was true, occasionally
to be found within the Chuiich some straitlaced parsons

10

CARDINAL MANNING

11

of the high Tory school who looked back with regret to
the days of Laud or talked of the Apostolical Succession ;
and there were groups of square-toed Evangelicals who
were earnest over the Atonement, confessed to a personal
love of Jesus Christ, and seemed to have arranged the whole
of their lives, down to the minutest details of act and speech,
with reference to Eternity. But such extremes were the
rare exceptions. The great bulk of the clergy walked
calmly along the smooth road of ordinary duty. They
kept an eye on the poor of the parish, and they conducted
the Sunday Services in a becoming manner ; for the rest,
they differed neither outwardly nor inwardly from the
great bulk of the laity, to whom the Church was a useful
organisation for the maintenance of Religion, as by law
established.

The awakening came at last, however, and it was a
rude one. The liberal principles of the French Revolution,
checked at first in the terrors of reaction, began to make
way in England. Rationalists lifted up their heads ;
Bentham and the Mills propounded Utilitarianism ; the
Reform Bill was passed ; and there were rumours abroad
of disestablishment. Even Churchmen seemed to have
caught the infection. Dr. Whately was so bold as to
assert that, in the interjiretation of Scripture, different
opinions might be permitted upon matters of doubt ;
and Dr. Arnold drew up a disquieting scheme for allowing
Dissenters into the Church, though it is true that he did
not go quite so far as to contemplate the admission of
Unitarians.

At this time there was living in a country parish a
young clergyman of the name of John Keble. He had
gone to Oxford at the age of fifteen, where, after a successful
academic career, he had been made a fellow of Oriel.
He had then returned to his father’s parish and taken up
the duties of a curate. He had a thorough knowledge
of the contents of the Prayer-book, the ways of a. Common
Room, the conjugations of the Greek Irregular Verbs, and

12

EMINENT VICTORIANS

the small jests of a country parsonage ; and the defects
of his experience in other directions were replaced by a
zeal and a piety which were soon to prove themselves
equal, and more than equal, to whatever calls might
be made upon them. The superabundance of his piety
overflowed into verse ; and the holy simplicity of the
Christian Year carried his name into the remotest lodging-
houses of England. As for his zeal, however, it needed
another outlet. Looking forth upon the doings of his
feJlow-men through his rectory windows in Gloucestershire,
Keble felt his whole soul shaken with loathing, anger,
and dread. Infidelity was stalking through the land ;
authority was laughed at ; the hideous doctrines of
Democracy were being openly preached. Worse still,
if possible, the Church herself was ignorant and luke-
warm ; she had forgotten the mysteries of the sacraments,
she had lost faith in the Apostolical Succession, she was
no longer interested in the Early Fathers, and she sub-
mitted herself to the control of a secular legislature, the
members of which were not even bound to profess belief
in the Atonement. In the face of such enormities what
could Keble do ? He was ready to do anything, but he
was a simple and an unambitious man, and his wrath
would in all probability have consumed itself unappeased
within him had he not chanced to come into contact,
at the critical moment, with a spirit more excitable and
daring than his own.

Hurrell Froude, one of Keble’s pupils, was a clever
young man to whom had fallen a rather larger share of
self-assurance and intolerance than even clever young
men usually possess. What was singular about him, how-
ever, was not so much his temper as his tastes. The sort
of ardour which impels more normal youths to haunt
Music Halls and fall in love with actresses took the form,
in Froude’s case, of a romantic devotion to the Deity and
an intense interest in the state of his own sotd. He was
obsessed by the ideals of saintliness, and convinced of

CARDINAL MANNING

13

the supreme importance of not eating too much. He
kept a diary, in which he recorded his delinquencies, and
they were many. “ I cannot say much for myself to-day,”
he writes on September 29th, 1826 (he was twenty -three
years old). “ I did not read the Psalms and Second
Lesson after breakfast, which I had neglected to do before,
though I had plenty of time on my hands. Would have
liked to be thought adventurous for a scramble I had at
the Devil’s Bridge. Looked with greediness to see if
there was a goose on the table for dinner ; and though
what I ate was of the plainest sort, and I took no variety,
yet even this was partly the effect of accident, and I cer-
tainly rather exceeded in quantity, as I was muzzy and
sleepy after dinner.” “ I allowed myself to be disgusted

with ’s pomposity,” he writes a little later ; “ also

smiled at an allusion in the Lessons to abstemiousness
in eating. I hope not from pride or vanity, but mistrust ;
it certainly was unintentional.” And again, ” As to my
meals, I can say that I was always careful to see that no
one else would take a thing before I served myself ; and
I believe as to the kind of my food, a bit of cold endings
of a dfib at breakfast, and a scrap of mackerel at dinner,
are the only things that diverged from the strict rule
of simplicity.” “ I am obliged to confess,” he notes,
“ that in my intercourse with the Supreme Being, I am
become more and more sluggish.” And then he exclaims ;
” Thine eye trieth my inward parts, and knoweth my
thoughts . . . O that my ways were made so direct
that I might keep Thy statutes. I will walk in Thy
Commandments when Thou hast set my heart at liberty.”

Such were the preoccupations of this young man.
Perhaps they would have been different if he had had
a little less of what Newman describes as his “ high severe
idea of the intrinsic excellence of Virginity ” ; but it is
useless to speculate. Naturally enough the fierce and
burning zeal of Keble had a profound effect upon his mind.
T^e two became intimate "friends, and Froude, eagerly

14

EMINENT VICTORIANS

seizing upon the doctrines of the elder man, saw to it that
they had as full a measure of controversial notoriety as
an Oxford common room could afford. He plunged the
metaphysical mysteries of the Holy Catholic Church into
the atmosphere of party politics. Surprised Doctors
of Divinity found themselves suddenly faced with strange
questions which had never entered their heads before.
Was the Church of England, or was it not, a part of the
Church Catholic ? If it was, were not the Reformers of
the Sixteenth Century renegades ? Was not the partici-
pation of the Body and Blood of Christ essential to the
maintenance of Christian life and hope in each individual ?
Were Timothy and Titns bishops ? Or were they not ?
If they were, did it not follow that the power of administering
the Holy Eucharist was the attribute of a sacred order
founded by Christ Himself ? Did not the Fathers refer
to the tradition of the Church as to something independent
of the written word, and sufficient to refute heresy, even
alone ? Was it not therefore God’s unwritten word ?
And did it not demand the same reverence from us as the
Scriptures, and for exactly the same reason — because it
was His word? The Doctors of Divinity were aghast at
such questions, which seemed to lead they hardly knew
whither; and they found it difficult to think of very
apposite answers. But Hurrell Froude supplied the
answers himself readily enough. All Oxford, all England,
should know the truth. The time was out of joint, and
he was only too delighted to have been bom to set it right.

But, after all, something more was needed than even
the excitement of Froude combined with the conviction
of Keble to ruffle seriously thef^^ calm waters of Christian
thought ; and it so l|||ipened that that thing was not
wanting: it was the genius of John Henry Newman.
If Newman had never lived, or iMris father, when the gig
came round on the fatal morning, ajdlliitp^Boided bfetween
the two Universities, had chanced nPlhirn the horse’s
head in the direction of Cambridge, wtM> CMi doubt th*t

CARDINAL I^ANNING 15

the Oxford Movement would have flickered out its little
flame unobserved in the Common Room of Oriel ? And
how different, too, would have been the fate of Newman
himself! He was a child of the Romantic Revival, a
creature of emotion and of memory, a dreamer whose
secret spirit dwelt apart in delectable mountains, an artist
whose subtle senses caught, like a shower in the sunshine,
the impalpable rainbow of the immaterial world. In
other times, xinder other skies, his days would have been
more fortunate. He might have helped to weave the
garland of Meleager, or to mix the lapis lazuli of Fra
Angelico, or to chase the delicate truth in the shade of an
Athenian palaestra, or his hands might have fashioned
those ethereal faces that smile in the niches of Chartres.
Even in his own age he might, at Cambridge, whose cloisters
have ever been consecrated to poetry and common sense,
liave followed quietly in Gray’s footsteps and brought
into flower those seeds of inspiration which now lie em-
bedded amid the faded devotion of the Lyra Apostolica.
At Oxford, he was doomed. He could not withstand
the last enchantment of the Middle Age. It was in vain
that he plunged into the pages of Gibbon or communed
for long hours with Beethoven over his beloved violin.
The air was thick with clerical sanctity, heavy with the
odours of tradition and the soft warmth of spiritual
authority ; his friendship with Hurrell Froude did the rest.
All that was weakest in him hurried him onward, and all
that was strongest in him too. His curious and vault^
imagination began to construct vast philosophical fabrics
out of the wrritings of ancient monks, and to dally with
visions of angelic visitatibW and the cfiicacy of the oil
of St. WaJbuiga ; his emotional nature became absorbed
in the partisan passions of a University clique ; and his
subtle intellect concerned itself more and more exclusively
with the diale9ti<^ sj^litting of dogmatical hairs. His
future course wainnaiiced out for him all too clearly ;
and yet by a sustgular chance the true nature of the man

16

EMINENT VICTORIANS

was to emerge triumphant in the end. If Newman had
died at the age of sixty, to-day he would have been already
forgotten, save by a few ecclesiastical historians ; but he
lived to write his Apologia, and to reach immortality,
neither as a thinker nor as a theologian, but as an artist
who has embalmed the poignant history of an intensely
human spirit in the magical spices of words.

IVhen Froude succeeded in impregnating Newman
with the ideas of Keble, the Oxford Movement began.
The original and remarkable charaeteristic of these
three men was that they took the Christian Religion
au pied de la lettre. This had not been done in England
for centuries. When they declared every Sunday that
they believed in the Holy Catholic Church, they meant
it. When they repeated the Athanasian Creed, they
meant it. Even when they subscribed to the Thirty-
nine Articles, they meant it — or at least they thought they
did. Now such a state of mind was dangerous — ^more
dangerous, indeed, than they at first realized. They had
started with the innocent assumption that the Christian
Religion was contained in the doctrines of the Church of
England ; but the more they examined into this matter,
the more difficult and dubious it became. The Church
of England bore everywhere upon it the signs of human
imperfection; it was the outcome of revolution and of
compromise, of the exigencies of politicians and the caprices
of princes, of the prejudices of theologians and the necessi-
ties, of the State. How had it happened that this piece of
patchwork had become the receptacle for the august
and infinite mysteries of the Christian Faith ? This was
the problem with which Newman and his friends found
themselves confronted. Other men might, and apparently
did, see nothing very strange in such a situation; but
other men saw in Christianity itself scarcely more than
a convenient and respectable appendage to existence,
by which a sound system of morals was inculcated, and
tWugh which one might hope to attain to everlasting

CARDINAL MANNING

17

bliss. To Newman and Keble it was otherwise. They
saw a transcendent manifestation of Divine power, flowing
down elaborate and immense through the ages; a con*
secrated priesthood, stretching back, through the mystic
symbol of the laying on of hands, to the very Godhead ;
a whole universe of spiritual beings brought into com-
munion with the Eternal by means of wafers ; a great
mass of metaphysical doctrines, at once incomprehensible
and of incalculable import, laid down with infinite certitude ;
they saw the supernatural everywhere and at all times,
a living force, floating invisible in angels, inspiring saints,
and investing with miraculous properties the commonest
material things. No wonder that they found such a
spectacle hard to bring into line with the institution
which had been evolved from the divorce of Henry VIII.,
the intrigues of Elizabethan parliaments, and the Revolution
of 1688. They did, no doubt, soon satisfy themselves
that they had succeeded in this apparently hopeless task ;
but the conclusions which they came to in order to do so
were decidedly startling.

The Church of England; they declared, was indeed
the one true Church, but she had been under an eclipse
since the Reformation — in fact, since she had begun
to exist. She had, it is true, escaped the corruptions
of Rome; but she had become enslaved by the secular
power, and degraded by the false doctrines of Protestantism.
The Christian Religion was still preserved intact by the
English priesthood, but it was preserved, as it wMe,
unconsciously — ^a priceless deposit, handed down blindly
from generation to generation, and subsisting less by
the will of man than through the ordinance of God as
expressed in the mysterious virtue of the Sacraments.
Christianity, in short, had become entangled in a series
of unfortunate circumstances from which it was the plain
duty of Newman and his friends to rescue it forthwith.
What was curious was that this task had been reserved,
in so marked a manner, for them. Some of the divines

18 EMINENT VICTORIANS

of the seventeenth century liad, perhaps, been vouchsafed
glimpses of the truth ; but they were glimpses and nothing
more. No, the waters of the true Faith had dived under-
ground at the Reformation, and they were waiting for the
wand of Newman to strike the rock before they should
burst forth once more into the light of day. The whole
matter, no doubt, was Providential — ^what other explana-
tion could there be ?

The first step, it was clear, was to purge the Church
of her shames and her errors. The Reformers must be
exposed ; the yoke of the secular power must be thrown
off ; dogma must be reinstated in its old pre-eminence ;
and Christians must be reminded of what they had
apparently forgotten — the presence of the supernatural
in daily life. “ It would be a gain to this country,”
Keblc observed, “ were it vastly more superstitious, more
bigoted, more gloomy, more fierce in its religion, than
at present it shows itself to be.” “ The only good 1
know of Cranmer,” said Hurrell Froude, “ was that he
burnt well.” Newman preached, and soon the new views
began to spread. Among the earliest of the converts was
Dr. Pusej^ a man of wealth and learning, a professor, a
canon of Christ Church, who had, it was rumotired, been
to Germany. Then the Tracis for the Times were started
under Newman’s editorship, and the Movement was
launched upon the world.

The Tracts were written “ with the hope of rousing
members of our Church to comprehend her alarming
position ... as a man might give notice of a fire or
imindation, to startle all who heard him.” They may be
said to have succeeded in their object, for the sensation
which they caused among clergymen throughout the
country was extreme. They dealt with a great variety of
questions, but the underlying intention of all of them was
to attack the accepted doctrines and practices of the Church
of England. Dr. Pusey wrote leemedly on Baptisms!
Regeneration ; he also wrote on Fasting. His treatment

ARDINAL MANNING

19

of the latter subject met with consider^le disapproval,
Avhich surprised the Doctor. “ I was not prepared,”
he said, “for people questioning, even in the abstract,
the duty of fasting ; I thought serious-minded persons
at least supposed they practised fasting in some way or
other. I assumed the duty to be acknowledged and thought
it only undervalued.” We live and learn, even though
we have been to Germany.

Other tracts discussed the Holy Catholic Church, the
Clergy, and the Liturgy. One treated of the question
“ whether a clergyman of the Church of England be now
bound to have morning and evening prayers daily in his
parish church ? ” Another pointed out the “ Indications
of a superintending Providence in the preservation of the
Prayer-book and in the changes which it has undergone.”
Another consisted of a collection of ” Advent Sermons
on Antichrist.” Keble wrote a long and elaborate tract
“ On the Mysticism attributed to the Early Fathers of
the Church,” in which he expressed his opinions upon a large
number of curious matters. “ According to men’s usual
way of talking,” he wrote, “ it would be called an accidental
circumstance that there were Jive loaves, not more nor
less, in the store of Our Lord and His disciples wherewith
to provide the miraculous feast. But the ancient inter-
preters treat it as designed and providential, in this surely
not erring : and their conjecture is that it represents the
sacrifice of the whole world of sense, and especially of
the Old Dispensation, which, being outward and visible,
might be called the dispensation of the senses, to the
Fathee of our Lord Jesus Christ, to be a pledge and
means of communion with Him according to the terms
of the new or evangelical law. This idea they arrive at
by considering the number five, the number of the senses
as the mystical opponent of the visible and sensible universe:
rh alvOijrii, as distinguished from rd vonra. Origen lays
down the rule in express terms. ‘ The number five,* he
says, * frequently, 'nay almost always, is taken for the

20

EMINENT VICTORIANS

five senses.’ ” In another passage, Keble deals with an
even more recondite question. He quotes the teaching
of St. Barnabas that “Abraham, who first gave men
circumcision, did thereby perform a spiritual and typical
action, looking forward to the Son.” St. Barnabas’s
argument is as follows : Abraham circumcised of his
house men to the number of 318 . Why 318 ? Observe
first the 18 , then the 300 . Of the two letters which stand
for 18 , 10 is represented by I, 8 by H. “ Thou hast here,”
says St. Barnabas, “ the word of Jesus.” As for the 300 ,
“ the Cross is represented by Tau, and the letter Tau re-
presents that number.” Unfortunately, however, St.
Barnabas’s premise was of doubtful validity, as the Rev.
Mr. Maitland pointed out, in a pamphlet impugning the
conclusions of the Tract. “ The simple fact is,” he wrote,
“ that when Abraham pursued Chedorlaomer ‘ he armed his
trained servants, horn in his own house, three hundred
and eighteen.’ When, more than thirteen (according to
the common chronology, fifteen) years after, he circum-
cised ‘ all the men of his house, born in the house, and bought
with money of the stranger,’ and, in fact, every male who
was as much as eight days old, we are not told what the
number amounted to. Shall we suppose (just for the sake
of the interpretation) that Abraham’s family had so dwindled
in the interval as that now all the males of his household,
trained men, slaves, and children, equalled only and exactly
the number of his warriors 15 years before ? ” The question
seems difficult to answer, but Keble had, as a matter
of fact, forestalled the argument in the following passage,
which had apparently escaped the notice of the Rev. Mr.
Maitland. “ Now whether the facts were really so or
not (if it were, it was surely by special providence), that
Abraham’s household at the time of the circumcision was
exactly the same number as before ; still the aipiment
of St. Barnabas will stand. As thus : circumcision had
from the beginning a reference to our Savioub, as in other
respects, so in this ; that the mystical number, which is

CARDINAL MANNING

21

the cypher of Jesus crucified, was the number of the
first circumcised household in the strength of which
Abraham prevailed against the powers of the world. So
St. Clement of Alexandria, as cited by Fell.” And Keble
supports his contention through ten pages of close print,
mth references to Aristeas, St. Augustin, St. Jerome, and
Dr. Whitby.

Writings of this kind could not fail of their effect.
Pious youths in Oxford were carried away by them, and
began to fiock round the standard of Newman. Newman
himself became a party chief, encouraging, organising,
persuading. His long black figure, swiftly passing through
the streets, was pointed at with awe ; his sermons were
crowded ; his words repeated from mouth to mouth.
“ Credo in Newmannum ” became a common catchword.
Jokes were made about the Church of England, and
practices, unknown for centuries, began to be revived.
Young men fasted and did penance, recited the hours of
the Roman Breviary, and confessed their sins to Dr.
Pusey. Nor was the movement confined to Oxford ; it
spread in widening circles through the parishes of England ;
the dormant devotion of the country was suddenly aroused.
The new strange notion of taking Christianity literally
was dehghtful to earnest minds ; but it was also alarming.
Really to mean every word you said, when you repeated
the Athanasian Creed I How wonderful ! And what
enticing and mysterious vistas burst upon the view 1
But then, those vistas, where were they leading to ?
Supposing — oh heavens ! — supposing after all they were
to lead to 1

Ill

In due course the Tracts made their appearance at the
remote Rectory in Sussex. Manning was some years
younger than Newman, and the two men had only met
occasionally at the University ; but now, through commoir
friends, a closer relationship began to grow up between
them. It was only to be expected that Newman should
be anxious to enroll the rising young Rector among his
followers ; and on Manning’s side there were many causes
which impelled him to accept the overtures from Oxford.

He was a man of a serious and vigorous temperament,
to whom it was inevitable that the bold high principles
of the Movement should strongly appeal. There was
also an element in his mind — that element which had
terrified him in his childhood with Apocalyptic visions,
and urged him in his youth to Bible-rcadings after break-
fast — ^which now brought him under the spell of the Oxford
theories of sacramental mysticism. And besides, the
Movement offered another attraction: it imputed an
extraordinary, a transcendent merit to the profession
which Manning himself pursued. The cleric was not as
liis lay brethren ; he was a creature apart, chosen by
Divine will and sanctified by Divine mysteries. It was
a relief to find, when one had suppos^ that one was
nothing but a clergyman, that one might, after all, be
something else — one might be a priest.

Accordingly, Manning shook off his early Evangelical
convictions, started an active correspondence with Newman,
and was soon working for the new cause. He collected
quotations, and b^an to translate the works of Optatus
for Dr. Pusey. He wrote an article on Justin for the

22

CARDINAL MANNING

28

British Critic, Newman’s Magazine. He published a
sermon on Faith, with notes and appendices, which was
condemned by an evangelical bishop, and fiercely attacked
by no less a person than the celebrated Mr. Rowdier.
“ The sermon,” said Mr. Rowdier, in a book which he
devoted to the subject, “ was bad enough, but the appendix
was abominable.” At the same time he was busy asserting
the independence of the Church of England, opposing
secular education, and bringing out pamphlets against
the Ecclesiastical Commission, which had been appointed
by Parliament to report on Church Property. Then we
find him in the r6le of a spiritual director of souls. Ladies
met him by stealth in his church, and made their confessions.
Over one case — ^that of a lady, who found herself drifting
towards Rome — he consulted Newman. Newman advised
him to “ enlarge upon the doctrine of 1 Cor. vii.” ; — “ also
I think you must press on her the prospect of benefiting
the poor Church, through which she lias her baptism, by
stopping in it. Does she not care for the souls of all
around her, steeped and stifled in Protestantism ? How
will she best care for them ; by indulging her own feelings
in the communion of Rome, or in denying herself, and
staying in sackcloth and ashes to do them good ? ”
Whether these arguments were successful does not appear.

For several years after his wife’s death Manning was
occupied with these new activities, while his relations
with Newman developed into what was apparently a warm
friendship. “ And now vive valeque, my dear Manning,”
we find Newman writing in a letter dated “ in festo S. Car.
1888,” “ as wishes and prays yours affectionately John
H. Newman.” Rut, as time went on, the situation be-
came more complicated. Tractarianism began to arouse
the hostility, not only of the evangelical, but o^ the
moderate churchmen, who could not help perceiving,
in the ever-deepening “ Catholicism ” of the Oxford party,
the dread approaches of Rome. The Record newspaper
—an influential Evangelical journal — took up the matter.

24

EMINENT VICTORIANS

and sniffed Popery in every direction ; it spoke of certain
clergymen as “ tainted ” ; and after that, preferment
seemed to pass those clergymen by. The fact that Manning
found it wise to conduct his confessional ministrations
in secret was in itself highly significant. It was necessary
to be careful, and Manning was very careful indeed.
The neighbouring Archdeacon, Mr. Hare, was a low church-
man; Manning made friends with him, as warmly, it
seemed, as he had made friends with Newman. He
corresponded with him, asked his advice about the books
he should read, and discussed questions of Theology —
“ As to Gal. vi. 16, we cannot differ. . . . With a man who
reads and reasons I can have no controversy ; and you do
both.” Archdeacon Hare was pleased, but soon a rumour
reached him, 'which was, to say the least of it, upsetting.
Manning had been removing the high pews from a church
in Brighton, and putting in open benches in their place.
Everyone knew what that meant ; everyone knew that
a high pew was one of the bulwarks of Protestantism,
and that an open bench had upon it the taint of Rome.
But Manning hastened to explain. “ My dear friend,”
he wrote, “ I did not exhange pews for open benches, but
got the pews (the same in number) moved from the nave
of the church to the walls of the side aisles, so that the
whole church has a regular arrangement of open benches,
which (irregularly) existed before ... I am not to-day
quite well, so farewell, with much regard — Yours ever,
H. E. M.” Archdeacon Hare was reassured.

It was important that he should be, for the Archdeacon
of Chichester was growing very old, and Hare’s influence
might be exceedingly useful when a vacancy occurred.
So, indeed, it fell out. A new bishop. Dr. Shuttleworth, '
was Appointed to the See, and the old Archdeacon took the
opportunity of retiring. Manning was obviously marked
out as his successor, but the new bishop happened to be
a low churchman, an aggressive low churchman, who
went so far as to parody the Tractarian fashion of using

CARDINAL MANNING 25

Saints’ days for the dating of letters by writing “ The
Palace, washing-day,” at the beginning of his. And —
what was equally serious — ^his views were shared by
Mrs. Shuttleworth, who had already decided that the
pushing young Rector was “tainted.” But at the critical
moment Archdeacon Hare came to the rescue ; he per-
suaded the Bishop that Manning was safe ; and the
appointment was accordingly made — ^behind Mrs. Shuttle-
worth’s back. She was furious, but it was too late;
Manning was an Archdeacon. All the lady could do,
to indicate her disapprobation, was to put a copy of Mr.
Bowdler’s book in a conspicuous position on the drawing-
room table, when he came to pay his respects at the Palace.

Among the letters of congratulation which Manning
received was one from Mr. Gladstone, with whom he had
remained on terms of close friendship since their days
together at Oxford. “ I rejoice,” Mr. Gladstone wrote,
“ on your account personally : but more for the sake of
the Church. All my brothers-in-law are here and scarcely
less delighted than I am. With great glee am I about to
write your new address ; but the occasion really calls
for higher sentiments ; and sure am I that you are one
of the men to whom it is specially given to develop the
solution of that great problem — how all our minor dis-
tractions are to be either abandoned, absorbed, or
liarmonised, through the might of the great principle of
communion in the body of Christ.” ^

Manning was an Archdeacon ; but he was not yet out
of the wood. His relations with the Tractarians had leaked
out, and the Record was beginning to be suspicious. If
Mrs. Shuttleworth’s opinion of him were to become general,
it would certainly be a grave matter. Nobody could
wish to live and die a mere Archdeacon. And thdi, at
that very moment, an event occurred which made it im-
perative to take a definite step, one way or the other.
That event was the publicatioii of Tract number 90.

For some time it had been obvious to every impartial

26

EMINENT VICTORIANS

onlooker that Newman was slipping down an inclined
plane at the bottom of which lay one thing, and one thing
only — ^the Roman Catholic Church. What was surprising
was the length of time which he was taking to reach the
inevitable destination. Years passed before he came to
realise that his grandiose edifice of a Church Universal
would crumble to pieces if one of its foundation stones
was to be an amatory intrigue of Henry VIII. But at
last he began to see that terrible monarch glowering at
him wherever he turned his eyes. First he tried to exorcise
the spectre with the rolling periods of the Caroline divines ;
but it only strutted the more truculently. Then in despair
he plunged into the writings of the early Fathers, and
sought to discover some way out of his difficulties in
the complicated labyrinth of ecclesiastical history. After
months spent in the study of the Monophysite heresy,
the alarming conclusion began to force itself upon him that
the Church of England was perhaps in schism. Eventually
he read an article by a Roman Catholic on St. Augustine
and the Donatists, which seemed to put the matter beyond
doubt. St. Augustine, in the fifth century, had pointed
out that the Donatists were heretics because the Bishop
of Rome had said so. The argument was crushing ; it
rang in Newman’s ears for days and nights ; and, though
he continued to linger on in agony for six years more,
he never could discover any reply to it. All he could
hope to do was to persuade himself and anyone else who
liked to listen to him that the holding of Anglican orders
was not inconsistent with a belief in the whole cycle of
Roman doctrine, as laid down at the Council of Trent.
In this way he supposed that he could at once avoid the
deadly sin of heresy and conscientiously remain a clergy-
man in the Church of England ; and with this end in
view he composed Tract number 90.

The object of the Tract was to prove that there was
nothing in the Thirty-nine Articles incompatible with the
creed of the Roman Church. Newman pointed out, for

CARDINAL MANNING

27

instance, that it was generally supposed that the Articles
condemned the doctrine of Purgatory ; but they did not ;
they merely condenmed the Romish doctrine of Purgatory ;
and Romish, clearly, was not the same thing as Roman.
Hence it followed that believers in the Roman doctrine of
Purgatory might subscribe the Articles with a good con-
science. Similarly, the Articles condemned “ the sacrifice
of the masses,” but they did not condemn “the sacrifice
of the Mass.” Thus the Mass might be lawfully cele-
brated in English Churches. Newman took the trouble to
examine the Articles in detail from this point of view,
and the conclusion he came to in every case supported his
contention in a singular manner.

The Tract produced an immense sensation, for it
seemed to be a deadly and treacherous blow aimed at
the very heart of the Church of England. Deadly it
certainly was, but it was not so treacherous as at first
sight appeared. The members of the English Church had
ingenuously imagined up to that moment that it was
possible to contain in a frame of words the subtle essence
of their complicated doetrinal system, involving the
mysteries of the Eternal and the Infinite on the one hand,
and the elaborate adjustments of temporal government
on the other. They did not understand that verbal
definitions in such a case will only perform their functions
so long as there is no dispute about the matters which they
are intended to define : that is to say, so long as there
is no need for them. For generations this had been the
case with the Thirty-nine Articles. Their drift was clear
enough ; and no body bothered over their exact meaning.
But directly some one found it important to give them
a new and untraditional inteipretation, it appeared that
they were a mass of ambiguity, and might be twisted
into meaning very nearly anything that anybody liked.
Steady-going churchmen were appalled and outraged
when they saw Newman, in Tract No. 90, performing
this operation. But, after all, he was only taking the

28

EMINENT VICTORIANS

Church of England at its word. And indeed, since
Newman showed the way, the operation has become so
exceedingly common that the most steady-going church-
man hardly raises an eyebrow at it now.

At the time, however, Newman’s treatment of the
Articles seemed to display not only a perverted super-
subtlety of intellect, but a temper of mind that was
fundamentally dishonest. It was then that he first
began to be assailed by those charges of untruthfulness
which reached their culmination more than twenty years
later in the celebrated controversy with Charles
Kingsley, which led to the writing of the Apologia. The
controversy was not a very fruitful one, chiefly because
Kingsley could no more understand the nature of
Newman’s intelligence than a subaltern in a line regiment
can understand a Brahmin of Benares. Kingsley was
a stout Protestant, whose hatred of Popery was, at
bottom, simply ethical — an honest, instinctive horror
of the practices of priestcraft and the habits of super-
stition ; and it was only natural that he should see in
those innumerable delicate distinctions which Newman
was perpetually drawing, and which he himself had
not only never thought of, but could not even grasp,
simply another manifestation of the inherent falsehood
of Rome. But, in reality, no one, in one sense of the
word, w^s more truthful than Newman. The idea of
deceit would have been abhorrent to him ; and indeed
it was owing to liis very desire to explain what he had
in his mind exactly and completely, with all the refine-
ments of which his subtle brain was capable, that per-
sons such as Kingsley were puzzled into thinking him
dishonest. Unfortunately, however, the possibilities of
truth and falsehood depend upon other things besides
sincerity. A man may be of a scrupulous and im-
peccable honesty, and yet his respect for the truth — it
cannot be denied — ^may be insufiicient. He may be,
like the lunatic, the lover, and the poet, “ of imf^natjon

CARDINAL MANNING

all compact ” ; he may be blessed, or cursed, with
one of those “ seething brains,” one of those “ shaping
fanatasies” that “apprehend more than- cool reason
ever comprehends ” ; he may be by nature incapable
of sifting evidence, or by predilection simply indisposed
to do so. “ ^Vhen we were there,” wrote Newman in
a letter to a friend after his conversion, describing a
visit to Naples, and the miraculous circumstances con-
nected with the liquefaction of St. Januarius’s blood,
“ the feast of St. Gennaro was coming on, and the
Jesuits were eager for us to stop — ^they have the utmost
confidence in the miracle — and were the more eager
because many Catholics, till they have seen it, doubt
it. Our father director here tells us that before he went
to Naples he did not believe it. That is, they have
vague ideas of natural means, exaggeration, etc., not
of course imputing fraud. They say conversions often
take place in consequence. It is exposed for the
Octave, and the miracle continues — ^it is not simple
liquefaction, but sometimes it swells, sometimes boils,
sometimes melts — no one can tell wliat is going to take
place. They say it is quite overcoming — and people
cannot help crj’ing to see it. I understand that Sir
H. Davy attended every day, and it was this extreme
variety of the phenomenon wliich convinced him tliat
nothing physical would account for it. Yet there is
this remarkable fact that liquefactions of blood are
common at Naples — and unless it is irreverent to the
Great Author of Miracles to be obstinate in the inquiry,
the question certainly rises whether there is something
in the air. (Mind, I don’t believe there is — and,
speaking humbly, and without having seen it, think
it a true miracle — ^but I am arguing.) We saw the blood
of St. Patrizia, half liquid ; i.e. liquefying, on her

feast day. St. John Baptist’s blood sometimes lique-
fies on the 29th of August, and did when we were
at Naples, but we had not time to go to the church.

80

EMINENT VICTOlllANS

We saw the liquid blood of an Oratorian Father, a good
man, but not a saint, who died two centuries ago, I
think ; and we saw the liquid blood of Da Ponte, the
great and Holy Jesuit, who, I suppose, was almost a
saint. But these instances do not account for lique-
faction on certain days, if this is the case. But the
most strange phenomenon is what happens at Ravello,
a village or town above Amalfi. There is the blood
of St. Pantaloon. It is in a vessel amid the stonework
of the Altar — ^it is not touched — ^but on his feast in June
it liquefies. And more, there is an excommunication
against those who bring portions of the True Cross into
the Church. Why ? Because the blood liquefies, when-
ever it is brought. A person I know, not knowing the
prohibition, brought in a portion — and the Priest
suddenly said, who showed the blood, ‘ Who has got
the Holy Cross about him ? ’ I tell you what was
told me by a grave and religious man. It is a curious
coincidence that in telling tliis to our Father Director
here, he said, ‘ Why, we have a portion of St.
Pantaloon’s blood at the Chiesa Nuova, and it is always
liquid.’ ”

After leaving Naples, Newman visited Loreto, and
inspected the house of the Holy Family, which, as is
known to the faithful, was transported thither, in three
hops, from Palestine. “ I went to' Lpreto,” he wrote,
“ with a simple faith, believing what I still more
believed when I saw it. I have no doubt now. If you
ask me why I believe, it is because every one believes it
at Rome ; cautious as they are and sceptical about some
other things. I have no antecedent difficulty in the matter.
He who floated the Ark on the surges of a world-wide
sea, and enclosed in it all living tilings, who has hidden
the terrestrial paradise, who said that faith might move
moimtains, who sustained thousands for forty years
in a sterile wilderness, who transported Elias and keeps
him bidden till the end, could do this wonder also.’l

CARDINAL MANNING

81

Here, whatever else there may be, there is certainly
no trace of a desire to deceive. Could a state of mind,
in fact, be revealed with more absolute transparency ?

When Newman was a child he “ wished that he could
believe the Arabian Nights were true.” When he came
to be a man, his wish seems to have been granted.

Tract No. 90 was officially condemned by the
authorities at Oxford, and in the hubbub that followed
the contending parlies closed their ranks ; hence-
forward any compromise between the friends and the
enemies of the Movement was impossible. Archdeaeon
Manning was in too conspicuous a position to be able to
remain silent ; he was obliged to declare himself, and he
did not hesitate. In an archidiaconal charge, deliveretl
within a few months of his appointment, he firmly
repudiated the Tractarians. But the repudiation was
not deemed sufficient, and a year later he repeated it
with greater emphasis. Still, however, the horrid rumours
were afioat. The Record began to investigate matters,
and its vigilance was soon rewarded by an alarming
discovery : the sacrament had been administered in
Chichester Cathedral on a week-day, and “ Archdeacon
Manning, one of the most noted and determined of the
Tractarians, had acted a conspicuous part on the
occasion.” It was clear that the only way of silencing
these malevolent whispers was by some public demon-
stration whose import nobody could doubt. The annual
sermon preached on Guy Fawkes Day before the Uni-
versity of Oxford seemed to offer the very opportunity
that Manning required. He seized it ; got himself
appointed preacher; and delivered from the pulpit of
St. Mary’s a virulently Protestant harangue. This time
there could indeed be no doubt about the matter ;
Manning had shouted ” No Popery ! ” in the very citadel
of the Movement, and every one, including Newman;,
recognised that he had finally cut himself off from his
old Mends. Every one, that is to say, except thp

d2

EMINENT VICTORIANS

Archdeacon himself. On the day after the sermon. Manning
walked out to the neighbouring village of Littlemore,
where Newman was now living in retirement with a few
chosen disciples, in the hope of being able to give a
satisfactory explanation of what he had done. But he
was disappointed ; for when, after an awkward interval,
one of the disciples appeared at the door, he was informed
that Mr. Newman was not at home.

With his retirement to Littlemore, Newman had
entered upon the final period of his Anglican career. Even
he could no longer help perceiving that the end was now
only a matter of time. His progress was hastened in an
agitating manner by the indiscreet activity of one of his
prosel 3 rtes, W. G. Ward, a young man who combined an
extraordinary aptitude for a priori reasoning with a
passionate devotion to Opira Bouffe. It was difficult, in
fact, to decide whether the inner nature of Ward was
more truly expressing itself when he was firing off some
train of scholastic paradoxes on the Eucharist or when
he was trilling the airs of Figaro and plunging through
the hilarious roulades of the Largo al Factotum. Even
Dr. Pusey could not be quite sure, though he was Ward’s
spiritual director. On one occasion his young penitent
came to him, and confessed tliat a vow which he had taken
to abstain from music during Lent was beginning to affect
his health. Could Dr. Pusey see his way to releasing him
from the vow ? The Doctor decided that a little sacred
music would not be amiss. Ward was all gratitude, and
that night a party was arranged in a friend’s rooms. The
concert began with the solemn harmonies of Handel,
which were followed by the holy strains of the “ O Salutaris ”
of Cherubini. Then came the elevation and the pomp of
“Possenti Numi ” from the Magic Flute. But, alas 1 there
lies much danger in Mozart. The page was turned, and
there was the delicious duet between Papageno and
Fapagena. Flesh and blood could not resist that ; then
Song followed song, the music waxed faster and l^hter.

CARDINAL MANNING

83

until at last Ward burst into the intoxicating merriment
of the Larfto al Factotum. Wlicn it was over a faint but
jiersislent knocking made itself heard upon the wall ;
and it was only then that the company remembered that
the rooms next door were Dr. Pusey’s.

The same entrainement which carried Ward away when
he sat down to a piano possessed him whenever he embarked
on a religious discussion. “ The thing that was utterly
abhorrent to him,” said one of his friends, “ was to stop
short.” Given the premises, he would follow out their
implications with the mercilessness of a medieval monk,
and when he had reached the last limits of argument be
ready to maintain whatever propositions he might find
there with his dying breath. He had the extreme innocence
of a child and a mathematician. Captivated by the
glittering eye of Newman, he swallowed whole the super-
natural conception of the universe which Newman had
evolved, accepted it as a fundamental premise, and began
at once to deduce from it whatsoever there might be
to be deduced. His very first deductions included irre-
futable proofs of (1) God’s particular providence for
individuals ; (2) the real efficacy of intercessory prayer ;
(8) the reality of our communion with the saints departed ;
(4) the constant presence and assistance of the angels of
God. Later on he explained mathematically the im-
portance of the Ember Days. “ Who can tell,” he added,
“ the degree of blessing lost to us in this land by neglecting,
as we alone of Christian Churches do neglect, these holy
days ? ” He then proceeded to convict the Reformers,
not only of rebellion, but “ — for my own part I see not
how we can avoid adding — of perjury.” Every day
his arguments became more extreme, more rigorously
exact, and more distressing to his master. Newman was
in the position of a cautious commander-in-chief being
hurried into an engagement against his will by a dashing
cavalry officer. Ward forced him forward step by step
towards — ^no 1 he could not bear it ; he shuddered and

D

EMINENT VICTORIANS

S4

drew back. But it was of no avail. In vain did Keble
and Puscy wring their hands and stretch forth their
pleading arms to their now vanishing brother. The
fatal moment was fast approaching. Ward at last
published a devastating book in which he proved conclu-
sively by a series of syllogisms that the only proper course
for the Church of England was to repent in sackcloth and
ashes her separation from the Communion of Rome.
The reckless author was deprived of his degree by an
outraged University, and a few weeks later was received
into the Catholic Church.

Newman, in a kind of despair, had flung himself into
the labours of historical compilation. His views of
history had changed since the days when as an under-
graduate he had feasted on the worldly pages of Gibbon.
“ Revealed religion,” he now thought, “ furnishes facts
to other sciences, which those sciences, left to themselves,
would never reach. Thus, in the science of history,
the preservation of our race in Noah’s ark is an historical
fact, which history never would arrive at without reve-
lation.” With these principles to guide liim, he plunged
with his disciples into a prolonged study of the English
Saints. Biographies soon appeared of St. Bega, SL.
Adamnan, St. Gundleus, St. Guthlake, Brother Drithelm,
St. Amphibalus, St. Wulstan, St. Ebba, St. Neot, St.
Ninian, and Cunibert the Hermit. Their austerities, their
virginity, and their miraculous powers were described in
detail. The public learnt with astonishment that St.
Ninian had turned a staff into a tree, that St. German
had stopped a cock from crowing, and that a child had
been raised from the dead to convert St. Helier. The
series has subsequently been continued by a more modem
writer whose relation of the history of the blessed St. Mail
contains, perhaps, even more matter for edification than
Newman’s biographies. At the time, indeed, those
works caused considerable scandal. Clergymen denounced
them in pamphlets. St. Cuthbert was described by his

CARDINAL MANNING

85

biographer as having “ carried the jealousy of women,
characteristic of all the saints, to an extraordinary pitch.”
An example was given : whenever he held a spiritual
conversation with St. Ebba, he was careful to spend the
ensuing hours of darkness “ in prayer, up to his neck in
water.” “ Persons who invent such tales,” wrote one
indignant commentator, “ cast very grave and just sus-
picions on the purity of their own minds. And young
persons, who talk and think in this way, are in extreme
danger of falling into sinful habits. As to the volumes
before us, the authors have, in their fanatical panegyrics
of virginity, made use of language downright profane.”

One of the disciples at Littlemore was James Anthony
Froude, the younger brother of Hurrell, and it fell to
his lot to be responsible for the biography of St. Ncot.
While he was composing it, he began to feel some qualms.
Saints who lighted fires with icicles, changed bandits
into wolves, and floated across the Irish Channel on
altar-stones, produced a disturbing effect on his historical
conscience. But he had promised his services to Newman,
and he determined to carry through the work in the
spirit in which he had begun it. He did so ; but he
thought it proper to add the following sentence by way
of conclusion : “ This is all, and indeed rather more than
all, that is known to men of the blessed St. Neot ; but
not more than is known to the angels in heaven.”

Meanwhile the English Roman Catholics were grow-
ing impatient ; was the great conversion never coming,
for which they had prayed so fervently and so long ?
Dr. Wiseman, at the head of them, was watching and
waiting with special eagerness. His hand was held out
under the ripening fruit ; the delicious morsel seemed to
be trembling on its stalk ; and yet it did not fall. At
last, unable to bear the suspense any longer, he dispatched
to Littlemore Father Smith, an old pupil of Newman's,
who had lately joined the Roman communion, with
instructions that he should do his best, under cover of

86

EMINENT VICTOEIANS

a simple visit of friendship, to discover how the land
lay. Father Smith was received somewhat coldly, and
the conversation ran entirely on topics which had nothing
to do with religion. MTicn the company separated before
dinner, he was beginning to think that his errand had been
useless ; but on their reassembling he suddenly noticed
that Newman had changed his trousers, and that the
colour of the pair which he was now wearing was grey.
At the earliest moment, the emissary rushed back post-
haste to Dr. Wiseman. “ All is well,” he exclaimed ;
“Newman no longer considers that he is in Anglican
orders.” “ Praise be to God ! ” answered Dr. Wiseman.
“ But how do you know ? ” Father Smith described what
he had seen. “ Oh, is that all ? My dear father, how
can you be so foolish ? ” But Father Smith w'as not to
be shaken. “ I know the man,” he said, “ and I know
what it means. Newman will come, and he w’ill come
soon.”

And Father Smith was right. A few weeks later,
Newman suddenly slipped off to a priest, and all was
over. Perhaps he W'ould have hesitated longer still, if
he could have foreseen how he was to pass the next thirty
years of his unfortunate existence ; but the future was
hidden, and all that was certain was that the past had
gone for ever, and that his eyes would rest no more upon
the snapdragons of Trinity. The Oxford Movement was
now ended. The University breathed such a sigh of relief
as usually follows the difficult expulsion of a hard piece
of matter from a living organism, and actually began to
attend to education. As for the Church of England, she
had tasted blood, and it was clear that she would never
again be content with a vegetable diet. Her clergy, how-
ever, maintained their reputation for judicious compronoise,
for they followed Newman up to the very point beyond
which his conclusions were logical, and, while they intoned,
confessed, swung incense, and burnt candles with the
exhilaration of converts, they yet managed to do so vritii

CARDINAL MANNING

87

a subtle nuance which showed that they had nothing to do
with Rome. Various individuals underwent more violent
changes. Several had preceded Newman into the Roman
fold; among others an unhappy Mr. Sibthorpe, who
subsequently changed his mind, and returned to the Church
of his fathers, and then — ^perhaps it was only natural —
changed his mind again. Many more followed Newman,
and Dr. Wiseman was particularly pleased by the con-
version of a Mr. Morris, who, as he said, was “ the author
of the essay, which won the prize, on the best method of
proving Christianity to the Hindoos.” Hurrell Froude
had died before Newman had read the fatal article on St.
Augustine ; but his brother, James Anthony, together
with Arthur Clough, the poet, went through an experience
which was more distressing in those daj'S than it has since
become : they lost their faith. With this difference,
however, that while in Froude’s case the loss of his faith
turned out to be rather like the loss of a heavy portmanteau,
which one afterwards discov^ers to have been full of old
rags and brickbats, Clough was made so uneasy by the loss
of his that he went on looking for it everywhere as long as
he lived ; but somehow he never could find it. On the
other hand, Keble and Pusey continued for the rest of
their lives to dance in an exemplar}' manner upon the tight-
rope of High Anglicanism ; in such an exemplary manner,
indeed, that the tight-rope has its dancers still.

Manning was now thirty-eight, and it was clear that he
was the rising man in the Church of England. He had
many powerful connections : he was the brother-in-law of
Samuel Wilberforce, who had lately been made a bishop ;
he was a close friend of Mr. Gladstone, who was a Cabinet
Minister; and he was becoming well known in the in-
fluential circles of society in London. His talent for
affairs was recognised not only in the Church, but in the
world at large, and he busied himself with matters of such
varied scope as National Education, the administration of
the Poor Law, and the Employment of Women. Mr,
Gladstone kept up an intimate correspondence with him
on these and on other subjects, mingling in his letters the
details of practical statesmanship with the speculations
of a religious thinker. “ Sir James Graham,” he wrote,
in a discussion of the bastardy clauses of the Poor Law,
“ is much pleased with the tone of your two communica-
tions. He is disposed, without putting an end to the
application of the workhouse test against the mother, to
make the remedy against the putative father ‘ real and
effective ’ for expenses incurred in the workhouse. I am
not enough acquainted to know whether it would be
advisable to go further. You have not proposed it ;
and I am disposed to believe that only with a revived and
improved discipline in the Church can we hope for any
generally effective check upon lawless lust.” “I agree
with you eminently,’' he writes, in a later letter, “ in your
doctrine of filtration. But it sometimes occurs to me,
though the question may seem a strange one, how far

CARDINAL MANNING

89

was the Reformation, but espeeially the Continental
Reformation, designed by God, in the region of final
causes, for that purification of the Roman Church which
it has actually realised ? ”

In his archdeaconry. Manning lived to the full the
active life of a country clergyman. His slim, athletic
figure was seen everywhere — ^in the streets of Chichester,
or on the lawns of the neighbouring rectories, or galloping
over the downs in breeches and gaiters, or cutting brilliant
figures on the ice. He was an excellent judge of horse-
flesh, and the pair of greys which drew his hooded phaeton
so swiftly through the lanes w’cre the admiration of the
county. His features were already beginning to assume
their ascetic caste, but the spirit of youth had not yet
fled from them, so that he seemed to combine the attrac-
tions of dignity and grace. He u'as a good talker, a
sympathetic listener, a man who understood the difficult
art of preserving all the vigour of a manly character and
yet never giving offence. No wonder that his sermons
were crowded, no wonder that his spiritual advice was
sought for eagerly by an ever-growing crowd of penitents,
no wonder that men would say, when his name was
mentioned, “ Oh, Manning ! No power on earth can
keep him from a bishopric ! ”

Such was the fair outward seeming of the Archdeacon’s
life ; but the inward reality was different. The more
active, the more fortunate, the more full of happy promise
his existence became, the more persistently was his secret
imagination haunted by a dreadful vision — ^the lake that
bumeth for ever with brimstone and Are. The tempta-
tions of the Evil One are many. Manning knew ; and he
knew also that, for him at least, the most subtle and
terrible of all temptations was the temptation of worldly
success. He tried to reassure himself, but it was in vain.
He committed his thoughts to a diary, weighing scrupu-
lously his every motive, examining with relentless search-
ings into the depths of his heart. Perhaps, after all, his

40

EMINENT VICTORIANS

longings for preferment were merely legitimate hopes for
“ an elevation into a sphere of higher usefulness.” But
no, there was something more than that. “ I do feel
pleasure,” he noted, “ in honour, precedence, elevation,
the society of great people, and all this is very shameful
and mean.” After Newman’s conversion, he almost
convinced himself that his “ visions of an ecclesiastical
future ” were justified by the r6le that he would play as
a “ healer of the breach in the Church of England.” Mr.
Gladstone agreed with him ; . but there was One higher
than Mr. Gladstone, and did He agree ? “I am pierced
by anxious thoughts. God knows what my desires have
been and arc, and why they are crossed. ... I am
flattering myself with a fancy about depth and reality.

. . . The great question is : Is God enough for you
now ? And if you arc as now, even to the end of life,
will it suflice you ? . . . Certainly I would rather choose
to be stayed on God, than to be in the thrones of the
world and the Church. Nothing else will go into
Eternity.”

In a moment of ambition, he had applied for the
Readership of Lincoln’s Inn, but, owing chiefly to the
hostile influence of the 'Record, the appointment had gone
elsewhere. A little later, a more important position was
offered to him — ^the office of sub-almoner to the Queen,
which had just been vacated by the Archbishop of York,
and was almost certain to lead to a mitre. The offer
threw Manning into an agony of self-examination. He
drew up elaborate tables, after the manner of Robinson
Crusoe, with the reasons for and against his acceptance
of the post : —

For, Against.

1. That it comes unsought. 1. Not therefore to be ac-
cepted. Such tlungs
are trials as well as
leadings.

CARDINAL MANNING

41

2. That it is honourable. 2. Being what I am, ought

I not therefore to de-
cline it —

(1) as humiliation ;

(2) as revenge on myself
for Lincoln’s Inn;

(8) as a testimony ?

And so on. He found in the end ten “ negative reasons,”
with no affirmative ones to balance them, and, after a
week’s deliberation, he rejected the offer.

But peace of mind was as far off from him as ever.
First the bitter thought came to him that “ in all this
Satan tells me I am doing it to be thought mortified and
holy ” ; and then he was obsessed by the still bitterer
feelings of ineradicable disappointment and regret. He
had lost a great opportunity, and it brought him small
comfort to consider that “ in the region of counsels, self-
chastisement, humiliation, self-discipline, penance, and of
the Cross ” he had perhaps done right.

The crisis passed, but it was succeeded by a fiercer
one. Manning was taken seriously ill, and became con-
vinced that he might die at any moment. The entries in
his diary grew more elaborate than ever ; his remorse for
the past, his resolutions for the future, his protestations
of submission to the will of God, filled page after page
of parallel columns, headings and sub-headings, numbered
clauses, and analytical tables. “ How do I feel about
Death ? ” he wrote. “ Certainly great fear —

1 . Because of the uncertainty of our state before

God.

2. Because of the consciousness —

(1) of great sins past,

(2) of great sinfulness,

(8) of most shallow repentance.

What shaU I do ? ”

He decided to mortify himself, to read St, Thomas

42 EMINENT VICTORIANS

Aquinas, and to make his “ night prayers forty instead of
thirty minutes.” He determined during Lent “ to use no
pleasant bread (except on Sundays and feasts) such as
cake and sweetmeat ; ” but he added the proviso “ I do
not include plain biscuits.” Opposite this entry appears
the word “ kept.” And yet his backslidings were many.
Looking back over a single week, he was obliged to register
“ petulance twice ” and “ complacent visions.” He heard
his curate being commended for bringing so many souls
to God during Lent, and he “ could not bear it ” ; but the
remorse was terrible : “I abhorred myself on the spot,
and looked upward for help.” He made out list upon list
of the Almighty’s special mercies towards him, and they
included his creation, his regeneration, and (No. 5) “ the
preservation of my life six times to my knowledge —

(1) In illness at the age of nine.

(2) In the water.

(8) By a runaway horse at Oxford.

(4) By the same.

(5) By falling nearly through the ceiling of a

church.

(6) Again by a fall of a horse. And I know not

how often in shooting, riding, etc.”

At last he became convalescent ; but the spiritual experi-
ences of those agitated weeks left an indelible mark upon
his mind, and prepared the way for the great change which
was to follow.

For he had other doubts besides those which held
him in torment as to his own salvation ; he was in doubt
about the whole framework of his faith. Newman’s
conversion, he found, had meant something more to
him than he had at first realised. It had seemed to come
as a call to the redoubling of his Anglican activities ;
but supposing, in reality, it were a call towards some-
thing very different — ^towards an abandonment of those
activities altogether ? It might be a “ trial,” or again
it might be a “ leading ” ; how was he to jiidge ?

CARDINAL MANNING

48

Already, before his illness, these doubts had begun to
take possession of his mind. “ I am conscious to
myself,” he wrote in his Diary, “ of an extensively changed
feeling towards the Church of Rome . . . The Church
of England seems to me to be diseased ; — 1. Organically
(six sub-headings). 2. Functionally (seven sub-headings)

. . . Wherever it seems healthy it approximates the
system of Rome.” Then thoughts of the Virgin Mary
suddenly began to assail him —

“ (1) If John the Baptist were sanctified from the
womb, how much more the B.V. !

(2) If Enoch and Elijah were exempted from death,

why not the B.V. from sin ?

(3) It is a strange way of loving the Son to slight

the mother ! ”

The arguments seemed irresistible, and a few weeks
later the following entry occurs — “ Strange thoughts
have visited me :

(1) I have felt that the Episcopate of the Church

of England is secularised and bound down
beyond hope. . . .

(6) I feel as if a light had fallen upon me. My

feeling about the Roman Church is not intel-
lectual. I have intellectual difficulties, but
the great moral difficulties seem melting.

(7) Something keeps rising and saying, ‘ You will

end in the Roman Church.’ ”

He noted altogether twenty-five of these “ strange
thoughts.” His mind hovered anxiously round —

“ (1) The Incarnation,

(2) The Real Presence,

i. Regeneration,

ii. Eucharist,

and (3) The Exaltation of S. M. and Saints.”

His twenty-second strange thought was as follows
“How do I know where I may be two years hence?
Where was Newman five years ago ?

44

EMINENT VICTORIANS

It was significant, but hardly surprising, that, after
his illness. Manning should have chosen to recuperate
in Rome. He spent several months there, and his Diary
during the whole of that period is concerned entirely
with detailed descriptions of churches, ceremonies, and
relics, and with minute accounts of conversations with
priests and nuns. There is not a single reference either
to the objects of art or to the antiquities of the place ;
but another omission was still more remarkable. Manning
had a long interview with Pius IX., and his only record
of it is contained in the bald statement : “ Audience
to-day at the Vatican.” Precisely what passed on that
occasion never transpired ; all that is known is that
His Holiness expressed considerable smprise on learning
from the Archdeacon that the chalice was used in the
Anglican Church in the administration of Communion.
“ What ! ” he exclaimed, “ is the same chalice made use
of by every one ? ” “I remember the pain I felt,” said
Maiming, long afterwards, “at seeing how unknown we
were to the Vicar of Jesus Christ. It made me feel our
isolation.”

On his return to England, he took up once more the
work in his Archdeaconry with what appetite he might.
Ravaged by doubt, distracted by speculation, he yet
managed to maintain an outward presence of unshaken
calm. His only confidant was Robert Wilberforce, to
whom, for the next two years, he poured forth in a series
of letters, headed “ Under the Seal ” to indicate that they
contained the secrets of the confessional, the whole history
of his spiritual perturbations. The irony of his position
was singular ; for during the w’hole of t^ time Manning
was himself holding back from the Church of Rome a
host of hesitating penitents by means of arguments which
he was at the very moment denoimcing as fallacious
to his own confessor. But what else could he do ? When
he received, for instance, a letter such as the following
from an agitated lady, what was he to say ?

CARDINAL MANNING

45

“ My dear Father in Christ,

. I am sure you would pity me and like
to help me, if you knew the unhappy, unsettled state
my mind is in, and the misery of being entirely, telierever
I am, with those who look upon joining the Church of
Rome as the most awful ‘ fall ’ conceivable to any one,
and are devoid of the smallest comprehension of how any
enlightened person can do it. • . . My old Evangelical
friends, with all my deep, deep love for them, do not
succeed in shaking me in the least. . . .

“ My brother has just published a book called
Regeneration, which all my friends are reading and highly
extolling ; it has a very contrary effect to what he would
desire on my mind. I can read and understand it all
in an altogether different sense, and the facts which he
quotes about the articles as drawn up in 1536, and again
in 1552, and of the Irish articles of 1615 and 1634, startle
and shake me about the Reformed Church in England
far more than anything else, and have done ever since
I first saw them in Mr. Maskell’s pamphlet (as quoted
from Mr. Dodsworth’s).

“ I do hope you have sometimes time and thought
to pray for me still. Mr. Galton’s letters long ago grew
into short formal notes, which hurt me and annoyed
me particularly, and I never answered his last, so, literally,
I have no one to say things to and get help from, which
in one sense is a comfort, when my convictions seem
to be leading me on and on and gaining strength in spite
of all the dreariness of my lot.

“Do you know I can’t help being very anxious and
unhappy about poor Sister Harriet. I am afraid of her
going out of her mind. She comforts herself by an
occasional outpouring of everything to me, and I had
a letter this morning. . . . She says Sister May has
promised the Vicar never to talk to her or allow her to
talk on the subject with her, and 1 doubt whether this
can be good for her, because though she has lost her

EMINENT VICTOBIANS

4C

faith, she says, in the Church of EnjJIand, yet she never
thinks of what she could have faitik in, and resolutely
without enquiring into the question determines not to
be a Roman Catholic, so that really you see she is allowing
her mind to run adrift, and yet perfectly powerless.

“ Forgive my troubling you with this letter, and
believe me to be always your faithful, grateful and
affectionate daughter,

“Emma Ryle.

“ P.S. I wish I could SCO you once more so very much.”

How was Manning, a director of souls, and a clergy-
man of the Church of England, to reply that in sober
truth there was very little to choose between the state
of mind of Sister Emma, or even of Sister Harriet, and his
own ? The dilemma was a grievous one : when a soldier
finds himself fighting for a cause in which he has lost
faith, it is treachery to stop, and it is treachery to go on.

At last, in the seclusion of his library, Manning turned
in an agony to those old writings which had provided
Newman with so much instruction and assistance ;
perhaps the Fathers would do something for him as well.
He ransacked the pages of St. Cyprian and St. Cyril ;
he went through the complete works of St. Optatus and
St. Leo ; he explored the vast treatises of Tertullian and
Justin Martyr. He had a lamp put into his phaeton,
so that he might lose no time during his long winter
drives. There he sat, searching St. Clirysostom for some
mitigation of his anguish, while he sped along between
the hedges to distant sufferers, to whom he duly
administered the sacraments according to the rites of
the English Church. He hurried back to commit to his
Diary the analysis of his reflections, and to describe,
under the mystic formula of secrecy, the intricate work-
ings of his conscience to Robert Wilberforce. But, alas 1
he was no Newman; and even the fourteen folios of St.
Augustine hinuielf, strange to say, gave him very little help.

CARDINAL MANNING

47

The final propulsion was to come from an entirely
different quarter. In November, 1847, the Reverend
Mr. Gorham was presented by the Lord Chancellor to
the living of Branaford Speke in the diocese of Exeter.
The Bishop, Dr. Phillpotts, w’as a High Churchman,
and he had reason to believe that Mr. Gorham held
evangelical opinions ; he therefore subjected him to an
examination on doctrine, which took the form partly
of a verbal interrogatory, lasting thirty-eight horns, and
partly of a scries of one hundred and forty-nine written
questions. At the end of the examination he came to
the conclusion that Mr. Gorham held heretical views
on the subject of Baptismal Regeneration, and he there-
fore refused to institute. Mr. Gorham thereupon took
proceedings against the Bishop in the Court of Arches.
He lost his case ; and he then appealed to the Judicial
Committee of the Privy Council.

The questions at issue were taken very seriously by
a large number of persons. In the first place, there was
the question of Baptismal Regeneration itself. This is
by no means an easy one to disentangle ; but it may be
noted that the doctrine of Baptism includes (1) God’s
intention, tlmt is to say. His purpose in electing certam
persons to eternal life — an abstruse and greatly contro-
verted subject, upon which the Church of England abstains
from strict definition ; (2) God’s action, whether by

means of sacraments or otherwise — concerning which
the Church of England maintains the efficacy of sacra-
ments, but does not formally deny that grace may be
given by other means, repentance and faith being present ;
and (8) the question whether sacramental grace is given
instrumentally, by and at the moment of the act of
baptism, or in consequence of an act of prevenient grace
rendering the receiver worthy — ^that is to say, whether
sacramental grace in baptism is given absolutely or
conditionally ; it was over this last question that the
dispute raged hottest in the Gorham Case. The Hi^

48

EMINENT VICTORIANS

Church party, represented by Dr. Phillpotts, asserted that
the mere aet of baptism conferred regeneration upon the
recipient and washed away his original sin. To this the
Evangelicals, headed by Mr. Gorham, replied that,
according to the Articles, regeneration would not follow
unless baptism was rightly received. What, then, was
the meaning of ‘ rightly ’ ? Clearly it implied not merely
lawful administration, but worthy reception j worthi-
ness, therefore, is the essence of the sacrament ; and
worthiness means faith and repentance. Now, two
propositions were aceepted by both parties — ^that all
infants are born in original sin, and that original sin is
washed away by baptism. But how could both these
propositions be true, argued Mr. Gorham, if it was also
true that faith and repentance w'cre necessary before
baptism could come into operation at all ? How could
an infant in arms be said to be in a state of faith and
repentance ? How, therefore, could its original sin be
w'ashcd away by baptism ? And yet, as every one agreed,
washed away it was. The only solution of the difficulty
lay in the doctrine of prevenient grace ; and Mr. Gorliam
maintained that unless God performed an act of prevenient
grace by which the infant was endowed with faith and
repentance, no act of baptism could be effectual ; though
to whom, and under what conditions, prevenient grace
was given, Mr. Gorham confessed himself unable to
decide. The light thrown by the Bible upon the whole
matter seemed somewhat dubious, for whereas the
baptism of St. Peter’s disciples at Jerusalem and St.
Philip’s at Samaria was followed by the gift of the Spirit,
in the case of Cornelius the sacrament succeeded the
gift. St. Paul also was baptised ; and as for the language
of St. John iii. 5 ; Rom. vi. 8, 4 ; 1 Peter iii. 21, it admits
of more than one interpretation. There could, how-
ever, be no doubt that the Church of England assented
to Dr. Phillpotts’ opinion ; the question was whether or
not she excluded Mr. Gorham’s. If it was decided that

CARDINAL MANNING

49

she did, it was clear that henceforward there would be
very little peace for Evangelicals within her fold.

But there was another issue, even more fundamental
than that of Baptismal Regeneration itself, involved in
the Gorham trial. An Act passed in 1888 had constituted
the Judicial Committee of the Privy Coimcil the supreme
court of appeal for such cases ; and this Committee
was a body composed entirely of laymen. It was thus
obvious that the Royal Supremacy was still a fact, and
that a collection of lawyers appointed by the CrovTi
liad the legal right to formulate the religious doctrine of
the Church of England. In 1850 their judgment was
delivered ; they reversed the decision of the Court of
Arches, and upheld the position of Mr. Gorham. Whether
his views were ‘theologically correct or not, they said,
was not their business ; it was their business to decide
whether the opinions under consideration were contrary
or repugnant to the doctrine of the Church of England
as enjoined upon the clergy by its Articles, Formularies,
and Rubrics ; and they had come to the conclusion tliat
they were not. The judgment still holds good ; and to
this day a clergyman of the Church of England is quite
at liberty to believe that Regeneration does not invariably
taJee place when an infant is baptised.

The blow fell upon no one with greater violence than
upon Manning. Not only was the supreme efficacy of the
sign of the cross upon a baby’s forehead one of his favourite
doctrines, but up to that moment he had been convinced
that the Royal Supremacy was a mere accident — a
temporary usmpation — ^which left the spiritual dominion
of the Church essentially untouched. But now the horrid
reality rose up before him, crowned and triumphant ;
it was all too clear that an Act of Parliament, passed by
Jews, Roman Catholics, and Dissenters, was the ultimate
authOTity which decided upon the momentous niceties
of the Anglican faith. Mr. Gladstone, also, was deeply
perturbed. It was absolutely necessary, he wrote, to

s

60

EMINENT VICTORIANS

rescue and defend the conscience of the Church from
the present hideous system.” An agitation was set on
foot, and several influential Anglicans, with Manning at
their head, drew up and signed a formal protest against
the Gorham Judgment. Mr. Gladstone, however, pro-
posed another method of procedure : precipitate action,
he declared, must be avoided at all costs, and he elabo-
rated a scheme for securing procrastination, by which
a covenant was to bind all those who believed that an
article of the creed had been abolished by Act of Parlia-
ment to take no steps in any direction, nor to announce
their intention of doing so, until a given space of time
had elapsed. Mr. Gladstone was hopeful that some
good might come of this — ^though indeed he could not
be sm-e. “ Among others,” he wrote to Manning, “ I
have consulted Robert Wilberforce and Wegg-Prossei’,
and they seemed inclined to favom my proposal.. It
might, perhaps, have kept back Lord Fielding. But he
is like a cork.”

The proposal was certainly not favoured by Manning.
Protests and procrastinations, approving Wegg-Prossers
and cork-like Lord Fieldings — ^all this was feeding the
wind and folly ; the time for action had come. “ I
can no longer continue,” he wrote to Robert Wilber-
forcc, “ under oath and subscription binding me to
the Royal Supremacy in Ecclesiastical causes, being
convinced : —

(1) That it is 9. violation of the Divine Office of the

'Church.

(2) That it has involved the Church of England in

a separation from the universal Church, which
separation I cannot clear of the character of
schism.

.'3) That it has thereby suspended and prevented
the fimctions of the Church of England.”

It was in vain that Robert Wilba'force pleaded, in
vain that Mr. Gladstone urged upon his mind the

CARDINAL MANNING

51

significance of John iii. 8.^ “I admit,” Mr. Gladstone
wrote, “that the words might in some way be satisfied
by supposing our Lord simply to mean ‘the facts of
nature are unintelligible, therefore be not afraid if revealed
truths be likewise beyond the compass of the imder-
standing ’ ; but this seems to me a meagre meaning.”
Such considerations could hold him no longer, and
Manning executed the resignation of his office and bene-
fice before a public notary. Soon afterwards, in the
little chapel off Buckingham Palace Road, kneeling
beside Mr. Gladstone, he worshipped for the last time
as an Anglican. Thirty years later the Cardinal told
how, just before the Communion service commenced, he
turned to his friend with the words : “ I can no longer
take the Communion in the Church of England.” “ I
rose up, and laying my hand on Mr. Gladstone’s shoulder,
said ‘ Come.’ It was the parting of the ways. Mr.
Gladstone remained ; and I went my way. Mr. Gladstone
still remains where I left him.”

On April 6th, 1851, the final step was taken : Maiming
was received into the Roman Catholic Church. Now
at last, after the long struggle, his mind was at rest.
“ I know what you mean,” he wrote to Robert
Wilberforce, “ by saying that one sometimes feels as if
all this might turn out to be only another ‘ Land of
Shadows.* I have felt it in time past, but not now.
The QtoXoyia from Nice to St. Thomas Aquinas, and
the undivided unity suffused throughout the world, of
which the Cathedra Petri is the centre, — ^now 1800 years
old, mightier in every power now than ever, in intellect,
in science, in separation from the world ; and purer too,
refined by- 800 years of conflict with the modem infidel
civilisation — ^all this is a fact more solid than the earth.”

' “ The wind blowetb where it lieteth, and thou hearest the sound
thereof, bat canst not tell whence it oometb, and whither it goeth ; so is
every one that is bom of the Spirit.”

V

When Manning joined the Church of Rome he acted under
the combined impulse of the two dominating forces in
his nature. His preoccupation mth the supernatural
might, alone, have been satisfied Avithin the fold of the
Anglican communion ; and so might his preoccupation
with himself : the one might have found vent in the
elaborations of High Church ritual, and the other in the
activities of a bishopric. But the two together could not be
quieted so easily. The Church of England is a commodious
institution ; she is very anxious to please ; but, some-
how or other, she has never managed to supply a happy
home to superstitious egotists. “ What an escape for my
poor soul ! ” Manning is said to have exclaimed when,
shortly after his conversion, a mitre was going a-begging.
But, in truth, Manning’s “ poor soul ” had scented nobler
quarry. To one of his temperament, how was it possible,
w’hen once the choice was plainly put, to hesitate for a
moment between the respectable dignity of an English
bishop, harnessed by the secular power, with the Gorham
judgment as a bit between his teeth, and the illimitable
pretensions of the humblest priest of Rome ?

For the moment, however, it seemed as if the Fates
had at last been successful in their little game of shunting
Manning. The splendid career which he had so laboriously
built up from the small beginnings of his Sussex curacy
was shattered — ^and shattered by the inevitable opCratinjg
of his own essential needs. He was over forty, and he
had been put back once more to the very bottom rung of
the ladder — a middle-aged neophyte with, so far as could

CARDINAL MANNING

53

be seen, no special claim to the attention of his new
superiors. The example of Newman, a far more illustrious
convert, was hardly reassuring : he had been relegated
to a complete obscurity, in which he was to remain until
extreme old age. Why should there be anything better
in store for Manning ? Yet it so happened that within
fourteen years of his conversion Manning was Archbishop
of Westminster and the supreme ruler of the Roman
Catholic community in England. This time the Fates
gave up the unequal struggle ; they paid over their stakes
in despair, and retired from the game.

Nevertheless it is difficult to feel quite sure that
Manning’s plunge was as hazardous as it appeared. Cer-
tainly he was not a man who was likely to forget to look
before he leaped, nor one who, if he happened to know
that there was a 'mattress spread to receive him, would
leap with less conviction. In the light of after-events,
one would be glad to know what precisely passed at that
mysterious interview of his with the Pope, three years
before his conversion. It is at least possible that the
authorities in Rome had their eye on Manning ; they
may well have felt that the Archdeacon of Chichester would
be a great catch. What did Pio Nono say ? It is easy
to imagine the persuasive innocence of his Italian voice.
“Ah, dear Signor Manning, why don’t you come over
to us ? Do you suppose that we should not look after
you ? ”

At any rate, when he did go over, Manning was
looked after very thoroughly. There was, it is true,
a momentary embarrassment at the outset : it was only
with the greatest difficulty that he could bring himself
to abandon his faith in the validity of Anglican Orders,
in which he believed “ with a consciousness stronger than
all reasoning.” He was convinced that he was still a
priest. When the Rev. Mr. Tierney, who had received
him into the Roman Catholic communion, assured him
that this was not the case, he was filled with dtemay and

54

EMINENT VICTORIANS

mortification. After a five hours’ discussion, he started
to his feet in a rage. “ Then, Mr. Tierney,” he exclaimed,
“ you think me insincere.” The bitter draught was
swallowed at last, and, after that, all went smoothly.
Manning hastened to Rome, and was immediately placed
by the Pope in the highly select Accademia Ecclesiastica,
commonly known as the “ nursery of Cardinals,” for
the purpose of completing his theological studies. When
the course was finished, he continued, by the Pope’s
special request, to spend six months of every year in
Rome, where he preached to the English visitors, became
acquainted with the great personages of the Papal court,
and enjoyed the privilege of constant interviews with the
Holy Father. At the same time he was able to make
himself useful in London, where Cardinal Wiseman, the
newly-created Archbishop of Westminster, was seeking
to reanimate the Roman Catholic community. Manning
was not only extremely popular in the pulpit and in the
confessional ; he was not only highly elfieient as a gleaner
of souls — and of souls who moved in the best society ; he
also possessed a familiarity with official persons and
official ways, which was invaluable. When the question
arose of the appointment of Catholic chaplains in the
Crimea during the war, it was Manning who approached
the Minister, interviewed the Permanent Secretary, and
finally succeeded in obtaining all that was required.
When a special Reformatory for Catholic children was
proposed. Manning carried through the negotiation with
the Government. When an attempt was made to remove
Catholic children from the Workhouses, Manning was again
indispensable. No wonder Cardinal Wiseman soon deter-
mined to find some occupation of special importance for
the energetic convert. He had long wished to establish
a congregation of secular priests in London particularly
devoted to his service, and the opportunity for the ex-
periment had clearly now arisen. The order of the
Oblates of St. Charles was founded in Bayswater, and

CARDINAL MANNING 55

Maiming was put at its head. Unfortunately no portion
of the body of St. Charles could be obtained for the new
community, but two relics of his blood were brought over
to Bayswater from Milan. Almost at the same time the
Pope signified his appreciation of Manning’s efforts by
appointing him Provost of the Chapter of Westminster —
a position which placed him at the head of the Canons of
the diocese.

This double promotion was the signal for the out-
break of an extraordinary intestine struggle, which raged
without intermission for the next seven years, and was
only to end with the accession of Manning to the Arch-
bishopric. The condition of the Roman Catholic com-
munity in England was at that time a singular one. On
the one hand the old repressive laws of the seventeenth
century had been repealed by liberal legislation, and on
the other a large new body of distinguished converts had
entered the Roman Church as a result of the Oxford
Movement. It was evident that there was a “ boom ”
in English Catholicism, and, in 1850, Pius IX. recognised
the fact by dividing Up the whole of England into dioceses,
and placing Wiseman at the head of them as Archbishop
of Westminster. Wiseman’s encyclical, dated “ from
without the Flaminian Gate,” in which he announced the
new departure, was greeted in England by a storm of
indignation, culminating in the famous and furi^nd
letter of Lord John Russell, then Prime Minister, against
the insolence of the “ Papal Aggression.” Though the
particular point against which the outcry was raised — ^the
English territorial titles of the new Roman bishops — ^was
an insignificant one, the instinct of Lord John and of the
English people was in reality sotmd enough. Wiseman’s
installation did mean, in fact, a new move in the Papal
game ; it meant an advance, if not an aggression — a
quickening in England of the long dormant energies of the
Roman Church. That Church has never had the reputa-
tion of being an institution to be trifled with; and* in

58

EMINENT VICTORIANS

those days, the Pope was still ruling as a temporal Prince
over the fairest provinces of Italy. Surely, if the images
of Giiy Fawkes had not been garnished, on that fifth of
November, with triple crowns, it would have been a very
poor compliment to His Holiness.

But it was not only the honest Protestants of England
who had cause to dread the arrival of the new Cardinal
Archbishop ; there was a party among the Catholics
themselves who viewed his installation with alarm and
disgust. The families in which the Catholic tradition had
been handed down uninterruptedly since the days of
Elizabeth, which had known the pains of exile and of
martyrdom, and which clung together, an alien and
isolated group in the midst of English society, now began
to feel that they were, after all, of small moment in the
counsels of Rome. They had laboured through the
heat of the day, but now it seemed as if the harvest was
to be gathered in by a crowd of converts, who were pro-
claiming on every side as something new and wonderful
the truths which the Old Catholics, as they came to be
called, had not only known, but for which they had
suffered, for generations. Cardinal Wiseman, it is true,
was no convert ; he belonged to one of the oldest of the
Catholic families ; but he had spent most of his life in
Rome, he was out of touch with English traditions, and
his sympathy with Newman and lus followers was only
too apparent. One of his first acts as Archbishop was to
appoint the convert W. G. Ward, who was not even in
holy orders, to be Professor of Theology at St. Edmimd’s
College — ^the chief seminary for young priests, in which
the ancient traditions of Douay were still flourishing.
Ward was an ardent Papalist, and his appointment in-
dicated clearly enough that in Wiseman’s opinion there
was too little of the Italian spirit in the English community.
The uneasiness of the Old Catholics was becoming intense,
when they were reassured by Wiseman’s appointing as
his coadjutor and successor his intimate friend. Dr.

CARDINAL MANNING

57

Errington, who was created on the occasion Archbishop
of Trebizond in partibus infidelium. Not only wa» Dr.
Errington an Old Catholic of the most rigid tjrpe, hfe was
a man of extreme energy, whose influence was certain
to be great ; and, in any case, Wiseman was growing old,
so that before very long it seemed inevitable that the
policy of the diocese would be in proper hands. Such
was the position of affairs when, two years after Errington’s
appointment. Manning became head of the Oblates of
St. Charles and Provost of the Chapter of West-
minster.

The Archbishop of Trebizond had been for some time
growing more and more suspicious of Manning’s influence,
and this sudden elevation appeared to justify his worst
fears. But his alarm was turned to fury when he learnt
that St. Edmund’s College, from w'hieh he had just
succeeded in removing the obnoxious W. G. Ward, was
to be placed under the control of the Oblates of St. Charles.
The Oblates did not attempt to conceal the fact that
one of their principal aims was to introduce the customs
of a Roman Seminary into England. A grim perspective
of espionage and tale-bearing, foreign habits and Italian
devotions, opened out before the dismayed eyes of the
Old Catholics ; they determined to resist to the utmost ;
and it was upon the question of the control of St. Edmund’s
that the first battle in the long campaign between
Errington and Manning was fought.

Cardinal Wiseman was now obviously declining
towards the grave. A man of vast physique — “yom
immense,” an Irish servant used respectfully to call
him — of sanguine temperament, of genial disposition,
of versatile capacity, he seemed to have engrafted upon
the robustness of his English nature the facile, child-like,
and expansive qualities of the South. So far from being
a Bishop Blougram (as the rumour went) he was, in
fact, the very antithesis of that subtle and worldly-wise
eedesiastio. He had innocently looked forward all his

58

EMINENT VICTORIANS

life to the reunion of England to the Sec of Peter, smd
eventually had come to believe that, in God’s hand,
he was the instrument destined to bring about this
miraculous consummation. Was not the Oxford Move-
ment, with its flood of converts, a clear sign of the Divine
will ? Had he not himself been the author of that
momentous article on St. Augustine and the Donatists,
which had finally convinced Newman that the Church
of England was in schism ? And then had he not been
able to set on foot a Crusade of Prayer throughout Catholic
Europe for the conversion of England ? He awaited
the result with eager expectation, and in the. meantime
he set himself to smooth away the hostility of his country-
men by delivering courses of popular lectures on
literature and arehajology. He devoted much time and
attention to the ceremonial details of his princely office.
His knowledge of rubric and ritual and of the symbolical
significations of vestments has rarely been equalled,
and he took a profound delight in the ordering and the
IJcrformance of elaborate processions. During one of
these functions an unexpected difficulty arose : the
Master of the Ceremonies suddenly gave the word for
a halt, and, on being asked the reason, replied that he
had been instructed that moment by special revelation
to stop the procession. The Cardinal, however, was not
at a loss. “ You may let the procession go on,” he
smilingly replied. “ I have just obtained permission,
by special revelation, to proceed with it.” His leisure
hours he spent in the writing of edifying novels, the
composition of acrostics in Latin Verse, and in playing
battledore and shuttlecock with his little nieces. There
was, indeed, only one point in which he resembled Bishop
Blougram — his love of a good table. Some of Newman’s
disciples were astonished and grieved to find that he
sat down to four courses of fish during Lent. “ I am
sorry to say,” remarked one of them afterwards, “ that
there is a lobster salad side to the Cardinal.”

CARDINAL MANNING 59

It was a melancholy fate which ordained that the
last years of this comfortable, easy-going, innocent old
man should be distracted and embittered by the fury
of opposing principles and the venom of personal

animosities. But so it was. He had fallen into the

hands of one who cared very little for the gentle pleasures
of repose. Left to himself, Wiseman might have com-
promised with the Old Catholics and Dr. Errington ;

but when Manning had once appeared upon the scene

all compromise became impossible. The late Arch-
deacon of Chichester, who had understood so well and
practised with such careful skill the precept of the golden
mean so dear to the heart of the Church of England, now,
as Provost of Westminster, flimg himself into the fray
with that unyielding intensity of fervour, that passion
for the extreme and the absolute, which is the very life-
blood of the Church of Rome. Even the redoubtable
Dr. Errington, short, thickset, determined, with hit
“ hawk-like expression of face,” as a contemporary
described him, “as he looked at you tlirough his blue
spectacles,” had been known to quail in the presence
of his antagonist, with his tall and graceful figure, his
pale ascetic features, his compressed and icy lips, his
calm and penetrating gaze. As for the poor Cardinal,
he was helpless indeed. Henceforward there was to be
no paltering with that dangerous spirit of independence
— ^was it not almost Gallicanism ?: — ^which possessed the
Old Catholic families of England. The supremacy of
the Vicar of Christ must be maintained at all hazards.
Compared with such an object, what were the claims of
personal affection and domestic peace ? The Cardinal
pleaded in vain ; his life-long friendship with Dr.
Errington was plucked up by the roots, and the harmony
of his private life was utterly destroyed. His own house-
hold was txirned against him. His favourite nephew,
whom be had placed among the Oblates under Manning’s
special c&re, left the congregation and openly joined the

60

EMINENT VICTORIANS

party of Dr. Errington. His secretary followed suit;
but saddest of all was the case of Monsignor Searle.
Monsignor Searle, in the capacity of confidential man of
affairs, had dominated over the Cardinal in private for
years with the autocratic fidelity of a servant who has
grown indispensable. His devotion, in fact, seemed to
have taken the form of physical imitation, for he was
hardly less gigantic than his noaster. The two were
inseparable ; their huge figures loomed together like
neighbouring mountains ; and on one occasion, meeting
them in the street, a gentleman congratulated Wiseman
on “ your Eminence’s fine son.” Yet now even this
companionship was broken up. The relentless Provost
here too brought a sword. There were explosions and
recriminations. Monsignor Searle, finding that his power
was slipping from him, made scenes and protests, and at
last was foolish enough to accuse Manning of peculation to
his face ; after that it was clear that his day was over ;
he was forced to slink snarling into the background,
while the Cardinal shuddered through all his immensity
and wished many times that he were already dead.

Yet he was not altogether without his consolations ;
Manning took care to see to that. His piercing eye had
detected the secret way into the recesses of the Cardinal’s
heart — had discerned the core of simple faith which
underlay that jovial manner and that facile talk.
Others were content to laugh and chatter and transact
their business ; Manning was more artistic. He watched
his opportunity, and then, when the moment came,
touched with a deft finger the chord of the Conversion
of England. There was an immediate response, and he
struck the same chord again, and yet again. He became
the repository of the Cardinal’s most intimate aspira-
tions. He alone sympathised and. understood. “ If God
gives me ..strength to undertake a great wrestling-match
with infidelity,” Wiseman wrote, “ I shall owe it to him.”

But what he really found himself undertaking vr&n

CARDINAL MANNING

01

a wrestling-match with Dr. Errington. The struggle
over St. Edmund’s College grew more and more acute.
There were high words in the Chapter, where Monsignor
Searle led the assault against the Provost, and carried
a resolution declaring that the Oblates of St. Charles
had intruded themselves illegally into the Seminary.
The Cardinal quashed the proceedings of the Chapter ;
whereupon the Chapter appealed to Rome. Dr. Errington,
carried away by the fury of the controversy, then appeared
as the avowed opponent of the Provost and the Cardinal.
With his own hand he drew up a document justifying
the appeal of the Chapter to Rome by Canon Law and
the decrees of the Council of Trent. Wiseman was
deeply pained. “ My own coadjutor,” he exclaimed,
“ is acting as solicitor against me in a lawsuit.” There
was a rush to Rome, where, for several ensuing years,
the hostile English parties -were to wage a furious battle
in the antechambers of the Vatican. But the dispute
over the Oblates now sank into insignificance beside
the rage of contention which centred round a new and
far more deadly question ; for the position of Dr. Errington
himself was at stake. The Cardinal, in spite of illness,
indolence, and the tics of friendship, had been brought at
last to an extraordinary slop : he was petitioning the
Pope for nothing less than the deprivation and removal
of the Archbishop of Trebizond.

The precise details of what followed are doubtful.
It is only possible to discern with clearness, amid a vast
cloud of official documents and imofficial correspondences
in English, Italian, and Latin, of Papal decrees and
voluminous scriUure, of confidential reports of episcopal
whispefs and the secret agitations of Cardinals, tlie form
of Manning, restless and indomitable, scouring like a
stormy petrel the angry ocean of debate. Wiseman,
dilatory, unbusinesslike, and infirm, was ready enough
to leave the conduct of affairs in his hands. Nor w'as it
long before Manning saw where the key of the whole

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EMINENT VICTORIANS

position lay. As in the old days, at* Chichester, he had
secured the good will of Bishop Shuttleworth by culti-
vating the friendship of Archdeacon Hare, so now, on
this vaster scale of operations, his sagacity led him swiftly
and unerringly up the little winding staircase in the
Vatican and through the humble door which opened into
the cabinet of Monsignor Talbot, the private secretary
of the Pope. Monsignor Talbot was a priest who em-
bodied in a singular manner, if not the highest, at least
the most persistent traditions of the Roman Curia. He
was a master of various arts which the practice of ages
has brought to perfection under the friendly shadow of
the triple tiara. He could mingle together astuteness
and holiness without any difficulty ; he could make
innuendoes as naturally as an ordinary man makes state-
ments of fact ; he could apply flattery with so unsparing
a hand that even Princes of the Church found it sufficient ;
and, on occasion, he could ring the changes of torture
on a human soul with a tact which called forth universal
approbation. With such accomplishments, it could hardly
be expected that Monsignor Talbot should be remarkable
either for a delicate sense of conscientiousness or for an
extreme refinement of feeling, but then it was not for those
qualities that Manning was in search when he went up
the winding stair. He was looking for the man who
had the car of Pio Nono ; and, on the other side of the
low-arched door, he found him. Then he put forth
all his efforts ; his success was complete ; and an alliance
began which was destined to have the profoundest effect
upon Manning’s career, and was only dissolved when,
many years later. Monsignor Talbot was unfortunately
obliged to exchange his apartment in the Vatican for
a private lunatic asylum at Passy.

It was determined that the coalition should be ratified
by the ruin of Dr. Errington. When the moment of crisis
was seen to be approaching, Wiseman was sunamoned
to Rome, where he began to draw up an immense

^CARDINAL MANNING

68

“ scrittura ” containing his statement of the case. For
months past the redoubtable energies of the Archbishop
of Trebizond had been absorbed in a similar task. Folio
was being piled upon folio, when a sudden blow threatened
to put an end to the whole proceeding in a summary
manner. The Cardinal was seized by violent illness,
and appeared to be upon his deathbed. Manning thought
for a moment that his labours had been in vain and tlml
all was lost. But the Cardinal reeovered ; Monsignor
Talbot used his influence as he alone knew how ; and a
papal decree was issued by which Dr. Errington was
“liberated” from the Coadjutorship of Westminster, to-
gether with the right of succession to the Sec.

It was a supreme act of authority — a “ colpo di stato
di Dominiddio,” as the Pope himself said — and the blow
to the Old Catholics was correspondingly severe. They
found themselves deprived at one fell swoop both of
the influence of their most energetic supporter and of
the certainty of coming into power at Wiseman’s death.
Aijid in the meantime Manning was redoubling his energies
at Bayswater. Though his Oblates had been checked
over St. Edmimd’s, there was still no lack of work for them
to do. There were missions to be carried on, schools
to be managed, funds to be collected. Several new
chmehes were built ; a community of most edifying
nuns of the Third Order of St. Francis was established ;
and £ 80 , 000 , raised from Manning’s private resources
and from those of his friends, was spent in three years.
“ I hate that man,” one of the Old Catholics exclaimed ;
“ he is such a forward piece.” The words were reported
to Manning, who shrugged his shoulders. “ Poor man,”
he said, “ what is he made of ? Does he suppose, in
his foolishness, that after working day and night for
twenty years in heresy and schism, on becoming a Catholic
I should sit in an easy-chair and fold my hands all the
rest of my life ? ” But his secret thoughts were of a differ-
ent caste. “ I am conscious of a desire,” he wrote in his

EMINENT VICTORIANS

diary, “ to be in such a position (1) as I had in times
past, (2) as my present circumstances imply, (8) as my
friends think me fit for, (4) as I feel my own faculties
tend to.

“ But, God being my helper, I will not seek it by the
lifting of a finger or the speaking of a word.”

So Manning UTote, and thought, and prayed ; but
what are words, and thoughts, and even prayers, to the
mysterious and relentless powers of circumstance and
character ? Cardinal Wiseman was slowly dying ; the
tiller of the Church was slipping from his feeble hand ;
and Manning was beside him, the one man with the energj%
the ability, the courage, and the conviction to steer the
ship upon her course. More than that ; thi-re w'as the
sinister figure of a Dr. Errington crouching close at hand,
ready to seize the helm and make straight — ^svho could
doubt it ? — ^for the rocks. In such a situation the voice
of self-abnegation must needs grow still and small indeed.
Yet it spoke on, for it was one of the paradoxes in Manning’s
soul that that voice was never silent. Whatever eke
he was, he was not unscrupulous. Rather, his scruples
deepened with his desires ; and he could satisfy his
most exorbitant ambitions in a profundity of self-abase-
ment. And so now he vowed to Heaven that he w'ould
seek nothing — ^no, not by the lifting of a finger or the
speaking of a word. But, if something came to him — ?
He had vowed not to seek ; he had not vowed not to take.
Might it not be his plain duty to take ? Might it not
be the will of God ?

Something, of course, did come to him, though it
seemed for a moment that it would elude his grasp.
Wiseman died, and there ensued in Rome a crisis of
extraordinary intensity. “ Since the creation of the
hierarchy,” Monsignor Talbot wrote, “ it is the greatest
moment for the Church that I have yet seen.” It was
the duty of the Chapter of Westminster to nominate
three candidates for succession to the Archbishopric ;

CARDINAL MANNING

65

they made one last effort, and had the temerity to place
upon the list, besides the names of two Old Catholic
bishops, that of Dr. Errington. It was a fatal blunder.
Pius IX. was furious ; the Chapter had committed an
“ insulta al Papa,” he exclaimed, striking his breast three
times in his rage. “ It was the Chapter that did it,”
said Manning afterwards ; but even after the Chapter’s
indiscretion, the fatal decision hung in the balance for
weeks. “ The great point of anxiety with me,” wrote
Monsignor Talbot to Manning, “ is whether a Congre-
gation will be held, or whether the Holy Father will
perform a Pontifical act. He himself is doubting. I
therefore say mass and pray every morning that he may
have the courage to choose for himself, instead of sub-
mitting the matter to a Congregation. Although the
Cardinals are determined to reject Dr. Errington, never-
theless I am afraid that they should select one of the
others. You know very well that Congregations are
guided by the documents that are placed before them ;
it is for this reason that I should prefer the Pope’s acting
himself.”

But the Holy Father himself was doubting. In his
indecision, he ordered a month of prayers and masses.
The suspense grew and grew. Everything seemed against
Manning. The whole English episcopate was opposed
to him ; he had quarrelled with the Chapter ; he was
a convert of but few years’ standing ; even the con-
gregated Cardinals did not venture to suggest the appoint-
ment of such a man. But suddenly the Holy Father’s
doubts came to an end. He heard a voice — ^a mysterious
inward voice — whispering something in his ear.
“ Metteteh ll ! Mettetelo l\ ! ” the voice repeated, over
and over again. Mettetelo It ! It was an inspiration ;
and Pius IX., brushing aside the recommendations of
the Chapter and the deliberations of the Cardinals, made
Manning, by a Pontifical act, Archbishop of Westminster.

Monsignor Talbot’s felicity was complete; and he

F

66

EMINENT VICTORIANS

took occasion, in conveying his congratulations to his
friend, to make some illuminating reflections upon the
great event. “ My policy throughout,” he wrote, “ was
never to propose you directly to the Pope, but to make
others do so ; so that both you and I ean always say that
it was not I who induced the Holy Father to name you,
which would lessen the weight of your appointment.
This I say, because many have said that your being named
was all my doing. I do not say that the Pope did not
know that I thought you the only man eligible ; as I
took care to tell him over and over again what was against
all the other candidates ; and in CDusequcnce he was
almost driven into naming you. After he had named
you, the Holy Father said to me, ‘ What a diplomatist
you arc, to make what you wished come to pass ! ’

“ Nevertheless,” concluded Monsignor Talbot, “ I
believe your appointment was specially directed by the
Holy Ghost.”

Planning hinrself was apparently of the same opinion.
“ My dear Child,” he wrote to a lady penitent, “ I have
in these last three weeks felt as if our Lord had called me
by name. Everything else has passed out of my mind.
The firm belief that I have long had that the Holy Father
is the most supernatural person I have ever seen has
given me this feeling more deeply still. I feel as if I
had been brought, contrary to all human wills, by the
Divine Will, into an immediate relation to our Divine
Lord.”

“ If indeed,” he wrote to Lady Herbert, “ it were the
will of our Divine Lord to lay upon me this heavy burden.
He could have done it in no way more strengthening and
consoling to me. To receive it from the hands of His
Vicar, and from Pius IX., and after long invocation of
the Holy Ghost, and not only without human influences, but
in spite of manifold and powerful human opposition,
gives me the last strength for such a cross.”

VI

Manning’s appointment filled his opponents with alarm.
Wrath and vengeance seemed to be hanging over them ;
what might not be expected from the formidable enemy
against whom they had struggled for so long, and who
now stood among them armed with arehiepLscopal powers
and invested with the special confidence of Rome ?
Great was their amazement, great was their relief, when
they found that their dreaded master breathed nothing
but kindness, gentleness, and conciliation. The old scores,
they found, were not to be paid off, but to be wiped out.
The new archbishop poured forth upon every side all
the tact, all the coiu’tesy, all the dignified graces of a
Christian magnanimity. It was impossible to withstand
such treatment. Bishops who had spent years in thwarting
him became his devoted adherents ; even the Chapter
of Westminster forgot its hatred. Monsignor Talbot
was extremely surprised. “Your greatest enemies have
entirely come round,” he wrote. “ I received the other
day a panegyric of you from Searle. This change of feeling
I cannot attribute to anything but the Holy Ghost.”
Monsignor Talbot was very fond of the Holy Ghost ;
but, so far at any rate as Searle was concerned, there was
another explanation. Manning, instead of dismissing
Searle from his position of “ oeconomus ” in the episcopal
household, had kept him on — at an increased salary;
and the poor man, who had not scrupled in the days of
his pride to call Manning a thief, was now duly grateful.

As to Dr. Errington, he gave an example of humility
and submission by at once withdrawing into a complete
obscuril^. For years the Archbishop of Trebizond, the

67

68

EMINENT VICTORIANS

ejected heir to the See of We&tininster, laboured as a
parish priest in the Isle of Man. He nursed no resent-
ment in his heart, and, after a long and edifying life of
peace and silence, he died in 1886 , a professor of theology
at Clifton.

It might be suj)poscd that Manning could now feel
that his triumph was complete. His position was secure ;
his ])owcr was absolute ; his prestige was daily growing.
Yet there was something that irked him still. As he
cast his ej'cs over the Roman Catholic community in
England, he was aw'arc of one figure which, by virtue
of a peculiar eminence, seemed to challenge the su]>rcmacy
of his own. That figure was Newman’s.

Since his conversion, Newman’s life had been a long
scries of misfortunes and disapiiointments. When he
had left the Church of Engld!nd, he was its most
distinguished, its most revered member, whose words,
however strange, were listened to with a profound atten-
tion, and whose opinions, however dubious, were followed
in all their fluctuations with an eager and indeed a
trembling respect. He entered the Church of Rome,
and found himself forthwith an unimportant man. He
was received at the Papal Court with a politeness which
only faintly concealed a total lack of interest and under-
standing. His delicate mind, with its refinements, its
hesitations, its complexities — ^his soft, spectacled, Oxford
manner, with its half-effeminate diffidence — such things
were ill calculated to impress a throng of busy Cardinals
and Bishops, whose days were spent amid the practical
details of ecclesiastical organisation, the long-drawn
involutions of papal diplomacy, and the delicious bickerings
of personal intrigue. And when, at last, he did succeed
in making some impression upon these surroundings, it
was no better ; it was worse. An uneasy suspicion
gradually arose; it began to dawn upon the Roman
authorities that Dr. Newman was a man of ideas. Was
it possible that Dr. Newman did not understand that

loiIN I ll M \ \l W M \N

CARDINAL MANNING 60

ideas in Rome were, to say the least of it, out of place ?
Apparently he did not ; nor was that all ; not content
with having ideas, he positively seemed anxious to spread
them. When that was known, the politeness in high
places was seen to be wearing decidedly thin.- His
Holiness, who on Newman’s arrival had graciously
expressed the wish to sec him “ again and again,” now,
apparently, was constantly engaged. At first Newman
supposed that the growing coolness was the result of
misapprehension ; his Italian was faulty, Latin was not
spoken at Rome, his writings had only appeared in garbled
translations. And even Englishmen had sometimes found
his arguments difficult to follow. He therefore determined
to take the utmost care to make his views quite clear ;
his opinions upon religious probability, his distinction
between demonstrative and circumstantial evidence, his
theory of the development of doctrine and the aspects
of ideas— these and many other matters, upon which he
had written so much, he would now explain in the simplest
language. He would show that there was nothing
dangerous in what he held, that there was a passage in
De Lugo which supported him, that Perrone, by main-
taining that the Immaculate Conception could be defined,
had implicitly admitted one of his main positions, and
that his language about Faith had been confused, quite
erroneously, with the fideism of M. Bautain. Cardinal
Barnabd, Cardinal Reisach, Cardinal Antonelli, looked
at him with their shrewd eyes and hard faces, while he
pomed into their ears — which, as he had already noticed
with distress, were large and not too clean — his careful
disquisitions ; but it was all in vain ; they had clearly
never read De Lugo or Perrone, and as for M. Bautain,
they had never heard of him. Newman in despair fell
back upon St. Thomas Aquinas ; but, to his horror, he
observed that St. Thomas himself did not mean very much
to the Cardinals. With a sinking heart, he realised at
last the painful truth ; it was not the nature of his views,

70 EMINENT VICTORIANS

it was his having views at all, that was objectionable.
He had hoped to devote the rest of his life to the teaching
of Theology ; but what sort of Theology could he teach
which would be acceptable to such superiors ? He left
Rome, and settled down in Birmingham as the head of
a small community of Oratorians. He did not complain ;
it was God’s will ; it was better so. He would watch
and pray.

But God’s will was not quite so simple as that. Was
it right, after all, that a man with Newman’s intellectual
gifts, his devoted ardour, his personal celebrity, should
sink away out of sight and use in the dim recesses of the
Oratory at Birmingham ? If the call were to come to
him to take his talent out of the napkin, how could he
refuse ? And the call did come. A Catholic University
was being started in Ireland, and Dr. Cullen, the Archbishop
of Armagh, begged Newman to become the Rector. At
first he hesitated, but when he learnt that it was the Holy
Father’s wish that he should take up the work, he could
doubt no longer ; the offer was sent from Heaven. The
difficulties before him were very great ; not only had a
new University to be called up out of the void, but the
position was complicated by the presence of a rival
institution — ^the undenominational Queen’s Colleges,
founded by Peel a few years earlier with the object of
giving Irish Catholics facilities for University education
on the same terms as their fellow-countrymen. Yet
Newman had the highest hopes. He dreamt of something
greater than a merely Irish University — of a noble and
flourishing centre of learning for the Catholics of Ireland
and England alike. And why should not his dream come
true ? “ In the midst of our difficulties,” he said, “ I
have one ground of hope, just one stay, but, as I think,
a sufficient one, which serves me in the stead of all other
argument whatever. It is the decision of the Holy See ;
St. Peter has spoken.”

The years that followed showed to what extent it

CARDINAL MANNING

71

was safe to depend upon St. Peter. Unforeseen obstacles
cropped up on every side. Newman’s energies were un-
tiring, but so was the inertia of the Irish authorities.
On his appointment, he wrote to Dr. Cullen asking that
arrangements might be made for his reception in Dublin.
Dr. Cullen did not reply. Newman wrote again, but still
there was no answer. Weeks passed, months passed,
years passed, and not a word, not a sign, came from Dr.
Cullen. At last, after dangling for more than two years
in the uncertainties and perplexities of so strange a
situation, Newman was summoned to Dublin. There
he found notliing but disorder and discouragement. The
laity took no interest in the scheme, the clergy actively
disliked it ; Newman’s authority was disregarded. He
appealed to Cardinal Wiseman, and then at last a ray of
hope dawned. The Cardinal suggested that a bishopric
should be conferred upon him, to give him a status suit-
able to his position ; Dr. Cullen acquiesced, and Pius IX
was all compliance. “ Mandcrcmo a Newman la crocetta,”
he said to Wiseman, smilingly drawing his hands down
each side of his neck to his breast, “ lo faremo vescovo
di Porfirio, o qualche luogo.” The news spread among
Newman’s friends, and congratulations began to come in.
But the official intimation seemed to be unaccountably
delayed ; no crocetta came from Rome, and Cardinal
Wiseman never again referred to the matter. Newman
was left to gather that the secret representations of Dr,
Cullen had brought about a change of counsel in high
quarters. His pride did not allow him to enquire further ;
but one of his lady penitents. Miss Giberne, was less
discreet. “ Holy Father,” she suddenly said to the Pope
in an audience one day, “ why don’t you make Father
Newman a bishop ? ” Upon which the Holy Father
looked much confused and took a great deal of snuff.

For the next five years Newman, unaided and ignored,
struggled desperately, like a man in a bog, with the over-
mastering difficulties of his task. His mind, whose native

72

EMINENT VICTORIANS

haunt was among the far aerial boundaries of fancy and
philosophy, was now clamped down under the fetters, of
petty detail, and fed upon the mean diet of compromise
and routine. He had to force himself to scrape together
money, to write articles for the students’ Gazette, to make
plans for medical laboratories, to be ingratiating with
the City Council ; he was obliged to spend months
travelling through the remote regions of Ireland in the
company of extraordinary ecclesiastics and barbarous
squireens. He was a thoroughbred harnessed to a four-
wheeled cab ; and he knew it. Eventually he realised
something else : he saw that the whole project of a Catholic
University had been evolved as a political and ecclesiastical
weapon against the Queen’s Colleges of Peel, and that
was all. As an instrument of education, it was simply
laughed at ; and he himself had been called in because
his name would be a valuable asset in a party game.
When he understood that, he resigned his rectorship
and returned to the Oratory.

But his tribulations were not yet over. It seemed to
be God’s will that he should take part in a whole succession
of schemes, which, no less than the project of the Irish
University, were to end in disillusionment and failure.
He was persuaded by Cardinal Wiseman to undertake
the editorship of a new English version of the Scriptures,
which was to be a monument of Catholic scholarship
and an everlasting glory to Mother Church. He made
elaborate preparations ; he collected subscriptions, engaged
contributors, and composed a long and learned pro-
legomena to the work. It was all useless ; Cardinal
Wiseman began to think of other things ; and the scheme
faded imperceptibly into thin air. Then a new task
was suggested to him. The Rambler, a Catholic periodical,
had fallen on evil days ; would Dr. Newman come to
the rescue and accept the editorship ? This time he
hesitated rather longer than usual; he had burnt his
fingers so often ; he must be specially careful now. “ I

CARDINAL MANNING

78

did all I could to ascertain God’s Will,” he said, and he
came to the conclusion that it was his duty to undertake
the work. He did so, and after two numbers had appeared
Dr. Ullathome, the Bishop of Birmingham, called upon
him, and gently hinted that he had better leave the paper
alone. Its tone was not liked at Rome ; it had
contained an article criticising St. Pius V., and, most
serious of all, the orthodoxy of one of Newman’s own
essays had appeared to be doubtful. He resigned, and
in the anguish of his heart determined never to write
again. One of his friends asked him why he was publishing
nothing. “ Hannibal’s elephants,” he replied, “ never
could learn the goose-step.” '

Newman was now an old man — he was sixty-three
years of age. What had he to look forward to ? A few
last years of insignificance and silence. ’VMiat had he
to look back upon ? A long chronicle of wasted efforts,
disappointed hopes, neglected possibilities, unappreciated
powers. And now all his labours had ended by his
being accused at Rome of lack of orthodoxy. He could
no longer restrain his indignation, and in a letter to one
of his lady penitents he gave vent to the bitterness of
his soul. When his Rambler article had been complained
of, he said, there had been some talk of calling him to
Rome. “ Call me to Rome,” he burst out — “ what does
that mean ? It means to sever an old man from his
home, to subject him to intercourse with persons whose
languages are strange to him — ^to food and to fashions
which are almost starvation on the one hand, and involve
restless days and nights on the other — it means to oblige
him to dance attendance on Propaganda week after
week and month after month — it means his death. (It
was the punishment on Dr. Baines, 1840-41, to keep him
at the door of Propaganda for a year.)

“ This is the prospect which I cannot but feel pro-
bable, did I say anything which one Bishop in Ei^land
chose to speak against and report. Others have been

74

EMINENT VICTOBIANS

killed before me. Lucas went of his own accord indeed
— ^but when he got there, oh ! how much did he, as loyal
a son of the Church and the Holy See as ever was, what
did he suffer beeause Dr. Cullen was against him ? He
wandered (as Dr. Cullen said in a letter he published
in a sort of triumph), he wandered from Church to Church
without a friend, and hardly got an audience from the
Pope. And I too should go from St. Philip to Our Lady,
and to St. Peter and St. Paul, and to St. Laurence and to
St. Cecilia, and, if it happened to me as to Lucas, should
come back to die.”

Yet, in spite of all, in spite of these exasperations
of the flesh, these agitations of the spirit, wliat was there
to regret ? Had he not a mysterious consolation which
outweighed every grief ? Surely, surely, he had.

“ Unveil, O Lord, and on us shine,

In glory and in grace,”

he exclaims in a poem written at this time, called, “ The
Two Worlds

** This gaudy world grows pale before
The beauty of Thy face.

“ Till Thou art seen it seems to be
A sort of fairy ground.

Where suns unsetting light the sky.

And flowers and fruit abound.

” But when Thy keener, purer beam
Is poured upon our sight.

It loses all its power to charm,

And what was day is night. . . .

” And thus, when we renounce for Thee
Its restless aims and fears,

The tender memories of the past,

The hopes of coming years,

” Poor is our saorifloe, whose eyes
Are lighted from above ;

We offer what we cannot keep,

What wo have ceased to love.”

Such were Newman’s thoughts when an unexpected
event occurred which produced a profound efiect upon

CABDINAL MANNING

75

his life. Charles Kingsley attacked his good faith and
the good faith of Catholics in general in a magazine article ;
Newman protested, and Kingsley rejoined in an irate
pamphlet. Newman’s reply was the Apologia pro Vita
Sua, which he wrote in seven weeks, sometimes working
twenty-two hours at a stretch, “ constantly in tears, and
constantly crying out with distress.” The success of the
book, with its transparent candour, its controversial
brilliance, the sweep and passion of its rhetoric, the depth
of its personal feeling, was immediate and overwhelming ;
it w'as recognised at once as a classic, not only by
Catholics, but by the whole English world. From every
side expressions of admiration, gratitude, and devotion
poured in. It was impossible for one so sensitive as
Newman to the opinions of other people to resist the
happy influence of such an unlooked-for, such an enormous
triumph. The cloud of his dejection began to lift ; ei
Vespoir malgri lui s’est glissi dans son ceeur.

It was only natural that at such a moment his
thoughts should return to Oxford. For some years past
proposals had been on foot for establishing there a Hall,
under Newman’s leadership, for Catholic undergraduates.
The scheme had been looked upon with disfavour in
Rome, and it had been abandoned; but now a new
opportunity presented itself; some land in a suitable
position came into the market ; Newman, with liis
reviving spirits, felt that he could not let this chance
go by, and bought the land. It was his intention to build
there not a Hall, but a Church, and to set on foot a “ House
of the Oratory.” What possible objection could there
be to such a scheme ? He approached the Bishop of
Birmingham, who gave his approval ; in Rome itself
there was no hostile sign. The laity were enthusiastic
and subscriptions began to flow in. Was it possible that
all was well at last ? Was it conceivable that the strange
and weary pilgrimage of so many years should end at
length, in quietude if not in happiness, where it had begun ?

76

EMINENT VICTORIANS

It so happened that it was at this very time that
Manning was appointed to the See of Westminster. The
destinies of the two men, which had run parallel to
one another in so strange a fashion and for so many
years, were now for a moment suddenly to converge.
Newly clothed with all the attributes of ecclesiastical
supremacy. Manning found himself face to face with
Newman, upon whose brows were glittering the fresh
laurels of spiritual victory — the crown of an apostolical
life. It was the meeting of the eagle and the dove.
What followed showed, more clearly perhaps than any
other incident in his career, the stuff that Manning was
made of. Power had come to him at last ; and he seized
it with all the avidity of a born autocrat, whose appetite
for supreme dominion had been whetted by long years
of enforced abstinence and the hated simulations of
submission. He was the ruler of Roman Catholic England,
and he would rule. The nature of Newman’s influence
it was impossible for him to understand, but he saw
that it existed ; for twenty years he had been unable to
escape the unwelcome iterations of that singular, that
alien, tluit rival renown ; and now it stood in his path,
alone and inexplicable, like a defiant ghost. “ It is
remarlcably interesting,” he observed coldly, when some-
body asked him what he thought of the Apologia ; “ it
is like listening to the voice of one from the dead.”
And such voices, with their sepulchral echoes, are apt
to be more dangerous than living ones ; they attract
too much attention ; they must be silenced at all costs.
It was the meeting of the eagle and the dove ; there
was a hovering, a swoop, and then the quick beak and the
relentless talons did their work.

Even before his accession to the Archbishopric,
Manning had scented a peculiar peril in Newman’s Oxford
scheme, and so soon as he came into power he privately
determined that the author of the Apologia should never
be allowed to return to his old University. Nor was

CARDINAL MANNING

77

there any luck of excellent reasons for such a decision.
Oxford was by this time a nest of liberalism ; it was
no fit place for Catholic youths, and they would inevitably
be attracted there by the presence of Father Newman.
And then, had not Father Newman’s orthodoxy been
impugned ? Had he not been heard to express opinions
of most doubtful propriety upon the question of the
Temporal Power ? Was it not known that he might
almost be said to have an independent mind ? An
influence? Yes, he had an influence, no doubt ; but v hat
a fatal kind of influence to which to subject the rising
generation of Catholic Englishmen !

Such were the reflections which Manning was careful
to jjour into the receptive ear of Monsignor Talbot. Tliat
useful priest, at his post of vantage in the Vatican, was
more th in ever the devoted servant of the new Archbishop.
A league, offensive and defensive, liad been established
between the two friends. “ I daresay I shall have many
opportunities to serve you in Rome,” wrote Monsignor
Talbot modestly. “ and I do not think my support will
be useless to you, especially on account of the peculiar
c^iaractCr of the Pope, and the spirit which pervades
Propaganda ; therefore I wish you to understand that
a compact exists between us ; if you help me, I shall
help you.” And a little later he added, “ I am glad you
accept the league. As I have already done for years,
I shall support you, and I have a hundred ways of doing
so. A word dropped at the proper occasion works
wonders.” Perhaps it was hardly necessary to remind
his coi’respondcnt of that.

So far as Newman was concerned it so fell out that
Monsignor Talbot needed no prompting. During the
sensation caused by the appearance of the Apologia, it
had occurred to him that it would be an excellent plan
to secure Newman as a preacher during Lent for the
fashionable congregation which attended his church in
the Piazza del Popolo ; and he had accordingly written

78 EMINENT VICTORIANS

to invite him to Rome, His letter was imfortunately
not a tactful one. He assured Newman that he would
find in the Piazza del Popolo “ an audience of Protestants
more educated than could ever be the case in England,”
and “ I think myself,” he had added by way of extra
inducement, “ that you will derive great benefit from
visiting Rome, and showing yourself to the Ecclesiastical
Authorities.” Newman smiled grimly at this ; he
ticclared to a friend that the letter was “ insolent ” ;
and he could not resist the temptation of using his sharp
pen.

“ Dear Monsignor Talbot,” he wrote in reply, “ I lJa^ o
received your letter, inviting me to preach in your Chm'ch
at Rome to an audience of Protestants more educated
than could ever be the case in England.

“ However, Birmingham people have souls ; and I
have neither taste nor talent for the sort of work which
you cut out for me. And I beg to decline your offer.

“ I am, yours truly,

“ John H. Newman.”

Such words were not the words of wisdom. It is easy
to imagine the feelings of Monsignor Talbot. “ Newman’s
work none here can understand,” he burst out to his friend.
“ Poor man, by living almost ever since he has been a
Catholic surrounded by a set of inferior men who idolise him,
I do not think he has ever acquired the Catholic instincts.”
As for his views on the Temporal Power — well, people said
that he had actually sent a subscription to Garibaldi.
Yes, the man was incomprehensible, heretieal, dangerous ;
he was “ uncatholic and unchristian.” Monsignor Talbot
even trembled for the position of Maiming in Engla nd-
“ I am afraid that the old school of Catholics will rally
round Newman in opposition to you and Rome. Stand
firm, do not yield a bit in the line you have taken. As
I have promised, I shall stand by -you. You will have
battles to fight, because every Englishman is naturally

CARDINAL MANNING

79

anti-Roman. To be Roman is to an Englishman an effort.
Dr. Newman is more English than the English. His spirit
must be crushed.”

His spirit must be crushed ! Certainly there could be
no doubt of that “ What you write about Dr. Newman,”
Manning replied, “ is true. Whether he knows it or not,
he has become the centre of those who hold low views
about the Holy Sec, are anti-Roman, cold and silent, to
say no more, about the Temporal Power, national, English,
critical of Catholic devotions, and always on the lower
side. . . . You will take care,” he coneludcd, “ that things
arc correctly knoAvn and understood where j'ou are.”

The confederates matured their plans. While Newman
was making his arrangements for the Oxford Oratory,
Cardinal Reisach visited London. “ Cardinal Reisach has
just left,” wrote Manning to Monsignor Talbot : “ he lias
seen and understands all that is going on in England.” But
Newman had no suspicions. It was true that persistent
rumours of his unorthodoxy and his anti-Roman leanings
had begun to float about, and these rumours had been
traced to Rome. But •what were rumours ? Then, too,
Newman found out that Cardinal Reisach had been to
Oxford without his knowledge, and had inspected the
land for the Oratory. That seemed odd ; but all doubts
were set at rest by the arrival from Propaganda of an
ofiRcial ratification of his scheme. There would be nothing
but plain sailing now. Newman was almost happy ;
radiant visions came into his mind of a ■wonderful future
in Oxford, the gradual growth of Catholic principles, the
decay of liberalism, the inauguration of a second Oxford
Movement, the conversion — who kno-ws ? — of Mark Pat-
tison, the triumph of the Church. . . . “ Earlier failures
do not matter now,” he exclaimed to a friend. “ I see
that I have been reserved by God for this.”

Just then a long blue envelope was brought into the
room. Newman opened it. “ All is over,” he said, “ I
am not allowed to go.” The envelope contained a letter

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from the Bishop announcing that, together with the formal
permission for an Oratory at Oxford, Propaganda had
issued a secret instruction to the effect that Newman
himself was by no means to reside there. If he showed
signs of doing so, he was, blandly and suavely (“ blande
suaviterque ” were the words of the Latin instrument)
to be prevented. And noAv the secret instniction had
come into operation : blande suaviterque Dr. Newman’s
spirit had been crushed.

His friends made some gallant efforts to retrieve the
situation ; but it was in vain. Father St. John hurried
to Rome ; and the indignant laity of England, headed by
Lord Edward Howard, the guardian of the young Duke of
Norfolk, seized the opportunity of a particularly virulent
anonymous attack upon Neymian to send him an address,
in which they expressed their feeling that “ every blow
that touches you inflicts a wound upon the Catholic Church
in this country.” The only result was an outburst of
redoubled fury upon the part of Monsignor Talbot. The
address, he declared, was an insult to the Holy See.
“ What is the province of the laity ? ” he interjected.
“ To hunt, to shoot, to entertain. These matters they
understand, but to meddle with ecclesiastical matters
they have no right at all.” Once more he warned Manning
to be careful. “ Dr. Newman is the most dangerous man
in England, and you will see that he will make use of
the laity against your Grace. You must not be afraid
of him. It will require much prudence, but you must
be firm. The Holy Father still places his confidence in
you ; but if you yield and do not fight the battle of the
Holy See against the detestable spirit growing up in
England, he will begin to regret Cardinal Wiseman, who
knew how to keep the laity in order.” Manning had no
thought of “ yielding ” ; but he pointed out to his agitated
friend that ap open conflict between himself and Newman
would be “ as great a scandal to the Church in England,
and as great a victory to the Anglicans, as could be.” He

CARDINAL MANNING 81

would act quietly, and there would be no more difficulty.
The Bishops were united, and the Church was sound.

On this, Monsignor Talbot hurried round to Father
St. John’s lodgings in Rome to express his regret at the
misunderstanding that had arisen, to wonder how it could
possibly have occurred, and to hope that Dr. Newman
might consent to be made a Protonotary Apostolic. That
was all the satisfaction that Father St. John was to obtain
from his visit to Rome. A few weeks later the scheme of
the Oxford Oratory was finally quashed.

When all was over. Manning thought that the time
had come for a reconciliation. He made advances through
a common friend ; what had he done, he asked, to offend
Dr. Newman ? Letters passed, and, naturally enough,
they only widened the breach. Newman was not the man
to be polite. “ I can only repeat,” he wrote at last, “ what
I said when you last heard from me. I do not know
whether I am on my head or my heels when I have active
relations with you. In spite of my friendly feelings, this
is the judgment of my intellect.” “ Meanwhile,” he con-
cluded, “ I propose to say seven masses for your intention
amid the difficulties and anxieties of your ecclesiastical
duties.” And Manning could only return the compliment.

At about this time the Curate of Littlemorc had a
singular experience. As he was passing by the Church
he noticed an old man, very poorly dressed in an old
grey coat with the collar turned up, leaning over the lych
gate, in floods of tears. He was apparently in great
trouble, and his hat was pulled down over his eyes, as if
he wished to hide his features. For a moment, however,
he turned towards the Curate, who was suddenly struck
by something familiar in the face. Could it be — ? A
photograph hung over the Curate’s mantelpiece of the
man who had made Littlemore famous by his sojourn
there more than twenty years ago ; he had never seen the
original ; but now, was it possible — ? He looked again,
and he could doubt no longer. It was Dr. Newman. He

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sprang forward, with proffers of assistance. Could he
be of any use ? “ Oh no, no ! ” was the reply. “ Oh no,
no ! ” But the Curate felt that he could not turn avr&y,
and leave so eminent a character in such distress. “ Was
it not Dr. Newman he had the honour of addressing ? ”
he asked, with all the respect and sympathy at his com-
mand. “ Was there nothing that could be done ? ” But
the old man hardly seemed to understand what was being
said to him. “ Oh no, no ! ” he repeated, with the tears
streaming down his face. “ Oh no, no 1 ”

VII

Meanwhile a reiruirkable problem was absorbing the
attention of the Catholic Church. Once more, for a
moment, the eyes of all Christendom were fixed upon
Rome. The temporal Power of the Pope had now almost
vanished ; but, as his worldly dominions steadily
diminished, the spiritual pretensions of the Holy Father
no less steadily increased. For seven centuries the im-
maculate conception of the Virgin had been highly pro-
blematical ; Pio Nono spoke, and the doctrine became
an article of faith. A few years later, the Court of Rome
took another step : a Syllabus Errorum was issued, in which
all the favourite beliefs of the modem world — the rights
of democracies, the claims of science, the sanctity of free
speech, the principles of toleration — were categorically
denounced, and their supporters abandoned to the
Divine wrath. Yet it was observed that the modern
world proceeded as before. Something more drastic
appeared to be necessary — some bold and striking measure
which should concentrate the forces of the faithful, and
confound their enemies. The tremendous doctrine of
Papal Infallibility, beloved of all good Catholics, seemed
to offer just the opening that was required. Let that
doctrine be proclaimed, with the assent of the whole
Church, an article of faith, and, in the face of such an
affirmation, let the modem world do its worst I Accord-
ingly a General Council — ^the first to be held since the
Council of Trent more than 800 years before — ^was sum-
moned to the Vatican, for the purpose, so it was announced,
of providing “an adequate remedy to the disorders,
intellectual and moral, of Christendom.” The programme

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might seem a large one, even for a General Council ; but
every one knew what it meant.

Every one, however, was not quite of one mind. There
were those to whom even the mysteries of Infallibility
caused some searchings of heart. It was true, no doubt,
that Our Lord, by saying to Peter, “ Thou art Cephas,
which is by interpretation a stone,” thereby endowed that
Apostle with the supreme and full primacy and princi-
pality over the Universal Catholic Church ; it was equally
certain that Peter afterwards became the Bishop of Rome ;
nor could it be doubted that the Roman Pontiff was his
successor. Thus it followed directly that the Roman
Pontiff was the head, heart, mind, and tongue of the
Catholic Church ; and moreover it was plain that when
Our Lord prayed for Peter that his faith should not fail,
that prayer implied the doctrine of Papal Infallibility.

All these things were obvious; and yet — and yet .

Might not the formal declaration of such truths in the
year of grace 1870 be, to say the least of it, inopportune ?
Might it not come as an offence, as a scandal even, to those
unacquainted with the niceties of Catholic dogma ? Such
were the uneasy reflections of grave and learned eccle-
siastics and theologians in England, France, and Germany.
Newman was more tlian usually iqisct ; Monseigneur
Dupanloup was disgusted ; and Dr. Bollinger prepared
himself for resistance. It was clear that there would be
a disaffected minority at the Council.

Catholic apologists have often argued that the Pope’s
claim to infallibility implies no more than the necessary
claim of every ruler, of every government, to the right
of supreme command. In England, for instance, the
Estates of the Realm exercise an absolute authority in
secular matters ; no one questions this authority, no one
suggests that it is absurd or exorbitant ; in other words,
by general consent, the Estates of the Realm are, within
their sphere, infallible. Why, therefore, should the Pope,
within his sphere — ^the sphere of the Catholic Church —

CARDINAL MANNING 85

be denied a similar' infallibility ? If there is nothing
monstrous in an Act of Parliament laying down what all
men shall do, why should there be anything monstrous
in a Papal Encyclical laying down what all men shall
believe ? The argument is simple ; in fact, it is too
simple ; for it takes for granted the very question which
is in dispute. Is there indeed no radical and essential
distinction between supremacy and infallibility ? between
the right of a Borough Council to regulate the traffic
and the right of the Vicar of Christ to decide upon the
qualifications for Everlasting Bliss ? There is one dis-
tinction, at any rate, which is palpable ; the decisions of
a supreme authority can be altered ; those of an infallible
authority cannot. A Borough Council may change its
traffic regulations at the next meeting ; but the Vicar
of Clu’ist, when, in certain circumstances and with certain
precautions, he has once spoken, lias expressed, for all the
ages, a jjart of the immutable, absolute, and eternal
Truth. It is this that makes the papal pretensions so
extraordinary and so enormous. It is also this that
gives them their charm. Catholic apologists, when they
try to tone down those pretensions and to explain them
away, forget that it is in their very exorbitance that their
fascination lies. If the Pope were indeed nothing more
than a magnified Borough Councillor, we should hardly
have heard so much of him. It is not because he satisfies
the reason, but because he astounds it, that men abase
themselves before the Vicar of Christ.

And certainly the doctrine of Papal Infallibility
presents to the reason a sufficiency of stumbling-blocks.
In the fourteenth century, for instance, the following
case arose. John XXII. asserted in his bull “ Cum inter
nonnullos” that the doctrine of the poverty of Christ
was heretical. Now, according to the light of reason,
one of two things must follow from this — either John
XXII. was himself a heretic or he was no Pope. For
his preeedessor, Nicholas III., had asserted in his bull

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“ Exiit qui seminat ” that the doctrine of the poverty
of Chi’ist was the true doctrine, the denial of which was
heresy. Thus if John XXII. was right Nicholas III. was
a heretic, and in that case Nicholas’s nominations of
Cardinals were void, and the conclave which elected John
was illegal ; so that John was no Pope, his nominations of
Cardinals were void, and the whole Papal succession
vitiated. On the other hand, if John was wrong — ^wcll,
he was a heretic ; and the same inconvenient results
followed. And, in either case, wliat becomes of Papal
Infallibility ?

But such crude and fundamental questions as these
were not likely to trouble the Council. The discordant
minority took another line. Infallibility they admitted
readily enough — the infallibility, that is to say, of the
Church ; what they shrank from was the pronouncement
that this infallibility was concentrated in the Bishop of
Rome. They would not actually deny that, as a matter
oTf fact, it was so concentrated ; but to declare that it was,
to make the belief that it was an article of faith — what
could be more — it was their favourite expression — more
inopportune ? In truth, the Gallican spirit still lingered
among them. At heart, they hated the autocracy of
Rome — ^the domination of the centralised Italian organisa-
tion over the whole vast body of the Church. They
secretly hankered, even at this late hour, after some form
of constitutional government, and they knew that the
last faint vestige of such a dream would vanish utterly
with the deelaration of the infallibility of the Pope. It
did not occur to them, apparently, that a constitutional
Catholicism might be a contradiction in terms, and that
the Catholic Church without the absolute dominion of the
Pope might resemble the play of Hamlet without the
Prince of Denmark.

Pius IX. himself was troubled by no doubts. “ Before
I was Pope,” he observed, “I believed in Papal Infalli-
bility, now I feel it.” As for Maiming, his certainty was

CARDINAL MANNING

87

no less complete than his master’s. Apart from the Holy
Ghost, his appointment to the See of Westminster had
been due to Pio Nono’s shrewd appreciation of the fact
that he was the one man in England upon whose fidelity
the Roman Government could absolutely rely. The voice
which kept repeating “ Mettetelo li, mettetelo li ” in his
Holiness’s ear, whether or not it was inspired by God,
was certainly inspired by political sagacity. For now
Manning was to show that he was not unworthy of the
trust which had been reposed in him. He flew to Rome
in a whirlwind of Papal enthusiasm. On the way, in
Paris, he stopped for a moment to interview those two
great props of French respectability, M. Guizot and M.
Thiers. Both were careful not to commit themselves,
but both were exceedingly polite. “ I am awaiting your
Council,” said M. Guizot, “ with great anxiety. It is
the last great moral power and may restore the peace of
Europe.” M. Thiers delivered a brief harangue in favour
of the principles of the Revolution, which, he declared,
were the very marrow of all Frenchmen ; yet, he added,
he had always supported the Temporal Power of the
Pope. “ Mais, M. Thiers,” said Manning, “ vous fetes
effectivement croyant. ” “ En Dieu,” replied M. Thiers.

The Rome which Manning reached towards the close
of 1869 was still the Rome which, for so many centuries,
had been the proud and visible apex, the palpitating
heart, the sacred sanctuary, of the most extraordinary
mingling of spiritual and earthly powers that the world
has ever known. The Pope now, it is true, ruled over
little more than the City itself— the Patrimony of St.
Peter — ^and he ruled there less by the grace of God than
by the goodwill of Napoleon III. ; yet he was still a
sovereign Prince ; and Rome was still the capital of the
Papal State ; she was not yet the capital of Italy. The
last hour of this strange dominion had almost struck.
As if she knew that her doom was upon he*): the Eterna 1
City arrayed herself to meet it in all her glory. The

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whole world seemed to be gathered together within her
walls. Her streets were filled with crowned heads and
Princes of the Church, great ladies and great theologians,
artists and friars, diplomats and newspaper reporters.
Seven hundred bishops were there, from all the comers of
Christendom, and in all the varieties of ecclesiastical
magnificence — in falling lace and sweeping purple and
flowing violet veils. Zouaves stood in the colonnade of
St. Peter’s, and Papal troops were on the Quirinal. Car-
dinals passed, hatted and robed, in their enormous
carriages of state, like mysterious painted idols. Then
there was a sudden hush : the crowd grew thicker and
expectation filled the air. Yes ! it was he ! He was
coming I The Holy Father ! But first there appeared,
mounted on a white mule and clothed in a magenta mantle,
a grave dignitary bearing aloft a silver cross. The golden
eoach followed, drawn by six horses gorgeously capa-
risoned, and within the smiling white-haired Pio Nono,
scattering his benedictions, while the multitude fell upon
its knees as one man. Such were the daily spectacles
of coloured pomp and of antique solemnity, which — so
long as the sun was shining, at any rate — dazzled the
onlooker into a happy forgetfulness of the reverse side of
the Papal dispensation — the nauseating filth of the high-
ways, the cattle stabled in the palaces of the great, and
the fever flitting through the ghastly tenements of the
poor.

In St. Peter’s, the North Transept had been screened
off ; rows of wooden seats had been erected, covered
with Brussels carpet ; and upon these seats sat, each
crowned with a white mitre, the seven hundred Bishops
in Council. Here all day long rolled forth, in sonorous
Latin, the interminable periods of episcopal oratory ; but
it was not here that the issue of the Council was deter-
mined. The assembled Fathers^ight talk till the marbles
of St. Peter’s themselves grew weary of the reverberations ;
the fate of the Church was decided in a very different

CARDINAL MANNING

89

manner — ^by little knots of influential persons meeting
quietly of a morning in the back room of some incon-
spicuous lodging-house, by a sunset rendezvous in the
Boighese Gardens between a Cardinal and a Diplomatist,
by a whispered conference in an alcove at a Princess’s
evening party, with the gay world chattering all about.
And, of course, on such momentous occasions as these.
Manning was in his element. None knew those difficult
ropes better than he ; none used them with a more service-
able and yet discreet alacrity. In every juncture he
had the right word, or the right silence ; his influence
ramified in all directions, from the Pope’s audience chamber
to the English Cabinet. “ II Diavolo del Concilio ” his
enemies called him ; and he gloried in the name.

The real crux of the position was less ecclesiastical
than diplomatic. The Papal Court, with its huge majority
of Italian Bishops, could make sure enough, when it
came to the point, of carrying its wishes through the
Council ; what was far more dubious was the attitude
of the foreign Governments — especially those of France
and England. The French Government dreaded a schism
among its Catholic subjects ; it disliked the prospect of
an extension of the influence of the Pope over the mass
of the population of France ; and, since the very existence
of the last remnant of the Pope’s Temporal Power depended
upon the French army, it was able to apply consider-
able pressure upon the Vatican. The interests of Rngland
were less directly involved, but it happened that at this
moment Mr. Gladstone was Prime Minister, and Mr.
Gladstone entertained strong views upon the Infallibility
of the Pope. His opinions upon the subject were in part
the outcome of his friendship with Lord Acton, a historian
to whom learning and judgment had not been granted
in equal proportions, and who, after years of incredible
and indeed well-nigh mythical research, had come to
the conclusion that the Pope could err. In this Mr.
Gladstone entirely concurred, though he did not share the

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rest of his friend’s theological opinions ; for Lord Acton,
while straining at the gnat of Infallibility, had swallowed
the camel of the Roman Catholic Faith. “ Que diable
allait-il fairc dans cctte galore ? ” one cannot help asking,
as one watches that laborious and scrupulous scholar,
that life-long enthusiast for liberty, that almost hysterical
reviler of priestcraft and persecution, trailing his learning
so discrepancy along the dusty Roman way. But there
are some who know how to wear their Rome with a
difference ; and Lord Acton was one of these.

He was now engaged in fluttering like a moth round
the Council, and in writing long letters to Mr. Gladstone,
impressing upon him the gravity of the situation, and
urging him to bring his influence to bear. If the Dogma
were carried, he declared, no man who accepted it could
remain a loyal subject, and Catholics would' everywhere
become “ irredeemable enemies of civil and religious
libci’ty.” In these circumstances, was it not plainly
incumbent upon the English Government, involved as it
was with the powerful Roman Catholic forces in Ireland,
to intervene ? Mr. Gladstone allowed himself to become
convinced, and Lord Acton began to hope that his efforts
would be s'uccessful. But he had forgotten one element in
the situation; he had reckoned without the Archbishop
of Westminster. The sharp nose of Manning sniffed out
the whole intrigue. Though he despised Lord Acton
almost as much as he disliked him — “ such men,” he said,
“ are all vanity : they have the inflation of German
professors, and the ruthless talk of undergraduates ” —
yet he realised clearly enough the danger of his corre-
spondence with the Prime Minister, and immediately
took steps to counteract it. There was a semi-official
agent of the English Government in Rome, Mr. Odo
Russell, and round him Harming set to work to spin his
spider’s web of delicate and clinging diplomacy. Pre-
liminary politenesses were followed by long wal]^ upon
the Pincio, and the gradual interchange of more and more

CARDINAL MANNING

91

important and confidential communications. Soon poor
Mr. Russell was little better than a fly buzzing in gossamer.
And Manning was careful to see that he buzzed on the
right note. In his despatches to the Foreign Secretary,
Lord Clarendon, Mr. Russell explained in detail the true
nature of the Council, that it was merely a meeting of a
few Roman Catholic prelates to discuss some internal
matters of Church discipline, that it had no political
significance whatever, that the question of Infallibility,
about which there had been so mueh random talk, was a
purely theological question, and that, whatever deeision
might be come to upon the subject, the j)osition of Roman
Catholics throughout the world would remain unchanged.
Whether the effect of these affirmations upon Lord
Clarendon was as, great as Manning supposed, is some-
what doubtful ; but it is at any rate eertain that Mr.
Gladstone failed to carry the Cabinet with him ; and
when at last a proposal was definitely made that the
English Government should invite the Powers of Europe
to intervene at the Vatiean, it was rejeeted. Manning
always believed that this was the direct result of Mr.
Russell’s despatches, which had acted as an antidote to
the poison of Lord Acton’s letters, and thus carried the
day. If that was so — the discretion of biographers has
not yet entirely lifted the veil from these proceedings —
Manning had assuredly performed no small service for his
cause. Yet his modesty would not allow him to assume
for himself a credit which, after all, was due elsewhere ;
and, when he told the story of those days, he would add,
with more than wonted seriousness, “ It was by the
Divine Will that the designs of His enemies were
frustrated.”

Meanwhile, in the North Transept of St. Peter’s a
certain amount of preliminary business had been carried
through. Various miscellaneous points in Christian
doctrine had been satisfactorily determined. Among
otiiers, the following Canons were laid down by th®

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Fathers. “ If any one do not accept for sacred and
canonical the whole and every part of the Books of Holy
Scripture, or deny that they are divinely inspired, let him
be anathema.” “ If any one say that miracles cannot
be, and therefore the accounts of them, even those in
Holy Scriptures, must be assigned a place among fables
and myths, or that the divine origin of the Christian
religion cannot rightly be proved from them, let him be
anatliema.” “ If any one say that the doctrines of the
Chureh can ever reeeive a sense in accordance with the
progress of science, other than that sense which the
Church lias understood and still understands, let him be
anathema.” “ If any one say that it is not possible,
by the natural light of human reason, to acquire a certain
knowledge of the One and True God, let him be anathema.”
In other words, it became aii article of Faith that Faith
was not necessary for a true knowledge of God. Having
disposed of these minor matters, the Fathers found them-
selves at last approaching the great question of Infalli-
bility. Two main issues, it soon appeared, were before
them : the Pope’s Infallibility was admitted, ostensibly
at least, by all ; what remained to be determined was,

(1) whether the definition of the Pope’s Infallibility was
opportune, and (2) what the definition of the Pope’s
Infallibility was. (1) It soon became clear that the sense
of the Council was overwhelmingly in favour of a definition.
The Inopportunists were a small minority ; they were
outvoted, and they were obliged to give way. It only
remained, therefore, to come to a decision upon the
second question — ^what the definition should actually be.

(2) It now became the object of the Inopportunists to
limit the scope of the definition as much as possible, while
the Infallibilists were no less eager to extend it. Now
every one — or nearly every one — ^was ready to limit the
Papal Infallibility to pronouncements ex cathedrd — ^that
is to say, to those made by the Pope in his capacity of
Universal Doctor; but this only served to rnise the

CARDINAL MANNING

98

ulterior, the portentous, and indeed the really crucial
question — to which of the Papal pronouncements ex
cathedrd did Infallibility adhere ? The discussions which
followed were, naturally enough, numerous, complicated,
and embittered, and in all of them Manning played a
conspieuous part. For two months the Fathers de-
liberated ; through fifty sessions they sought the guidanee
of the Holy Ghost. The wooden seats, covered though
they were with Brussels carpet, grew harder and harder ;
and still the mitred Councillors sat on. The Pope himself
began to grow impatient ; for one thing, he declared,
he was being ruined by the mere expense of lodging and
keeping the multitude of his adherents. “ Quest! infalli-
bilisti mi faranno fallire,” said his Holiness. At length
it appeared that the Inopportunists were dragging out the
proceedings in the hope of obtaining an indefinite post-
ponement. Then the authorities began to act ; a bishop
was shouted down, and the closure was brought into opera-
tion. At this point the French Government, after long
hesitation, finally decided to intervene, and Cardinal
Antonelli was informed that if the Definition was pro-
ceeded with the French troops would be withdrawn from
Rome. But the astute Cardinal judged that he could
safely ignore the threat. He saw that Napoleon III.
was tottering to his fall and would never risk an open
rupture with the Vatican. Accordingly it was determined
to bring the proceedings to a close by a final vote. Already
the Inopportunists, seeing that the game was up, had
shaken the dust of Rome from their feet. On July 18th,
1870,' the Council met for the last time. As the first of
the Fathers stepped forward to declare his vote, a storm of
thunder and lightning suddenly burst over St. Peter’s.
All through the morning the voting continued, and every
vote was accompanied by a flash and a roar from heaven.
Both sides, with equal justice, claimed the portent as a
manifestation of the Divine Opinion. When the votes
were examined, it was found tlmt 688 were in favour of

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the proposed definition and two against it. Next day
war was declared between France and Germany, and a
few weeks later the French troops were withdrawn from
Rome. Almost in the same moment the successor of
St. Peter had lost his Temporal Power and gained
Infallibility.

What the Council had done was merely to assent to
a definition of the dogma of the Infallibility of the Roman
Pontiff which Pius IX. had issued, proprio motu, a few
days before. The definition itself was perhaps somewhat
less extreme than might have been expected. The Pope,
it declared, is possessed, when he speaks ex cathedrd, of
“ that infallibility with which the Redeemer willed that
his Church should be endowed for defining doctrine
regarding faith or morals.” Thus it became a dogma of
faith that a Papal definition regarding faith or morals
is infallible ; but beyond that both the Holy Father and
the Council maintained a judicious reserve. Over what
other matters besides faith and morals the Papal infalli-
bility might or might not extend still remained in doubt.
And there were further questions, no less serious, to which
no decisive answer was then, or ever has been since,
provided. How was it to be determined, for instance,
which particular Papal decisions did in fact come within
the scope of the definition ? Who was to decide what
was or was not a matter of faith or morals ? Or precisely
when the Roman Pontiff was speaking ex cathedrd ?
Was the famous Syllabus Errorum, for example, issued
ex cathedrd or not ? Grave theologians have never been
able to make up their minds. Yet to admit doubts in
such matters as these is surely dangerous. ” In duty to
our supreme pastoral office,” proclaimed the Sovereign
Pontiff, “ by the bowels of Christ we earnestly entreat all
Christ’s faithful people, and we also command them by
the authority of God and our Saviour, that they study
and labour to expel and eliminate errors and display the
light of the purest faith.” Well might the faithful study

CARDINAL MANNING

95

and labour to such ends 1 For, while the ofCencc remained
ambiguous, there was no ambiguity about the penalty.
One hair’s breadth from the unknown path of truth, one
shadow of impurity in the mysterious light of faith — ^and
there shall be anathema ! anathema ! anathema ! When
the framers of such edicts called upon the bowels of
Christ to justify them, might they not have done well to
have paused a little, and to have called to mind the
counsel of another sovereign ruler, though a heretic —
Oliver Cromwell ? “ Bethink ye, bethink ye, in the
bowels of Christ, that ye may be mistaken ! ”

One of the secondary results of the Council was the
excommunication of Dr. Dollinger and a few more of the
most uncompromising of the Inopportunists. Among
these, however. Lord Acton was not included. Nobody
ever discovered why. Was it because he was too impor*
tant for the Holy See to care to interfere with him ? Or
was it because he was not important enough ?

Another ulterior consequence was the appearance of
a pamphlet by Mr. Gladstone, entitled “ Vaticanism,” in
which the awfid implications involved in the declaration
of Infallibility were laid before the British public. How
was it possible, Mr. Gladstone asked, with all the ful-
minating accompaniments of his most agitated rhetoric,
to depend henceforward upon the civil allegiance of Roman
Catholics ? To this question the words of Cardinal
Antonelli to the Austrian Ambassador might have seemed
a sufficient reply. “ There is a great difference,” said his
Eminence, “ between theory and practice. No one will
ever prevent the Church from proclaiming the great
principles upon which its Divine fabric is based ; but, as
regards the application of those sacred laws, the Church,
imitating the example of its Divine Founder, is inclined to
take into consideration the natural weaknesses of mankind.”
And, in any case, it was hard to see how the system of
Faith, which had enabled Pope Gregory XHI. to effect, by
the hands of English Catholics, a whole series of attmpta

96 EMINENT VICTORIANS

to murder Queen Elizabeth, can have been rendered
a much more dangerous engine of disloyalty by the
Definition of 1870. But such considerations failed to
reassure Mr. Gladstone ; the British Public was of a
like mind ; and 145,000 copies of the pamphlet were sold
within two months. Various replies appeared, and
Manning was not behindhand. His share in the con-
troversy led to a curious personal encounter.

His conversion had come as a great shock to Mr.
Gladstone. Manning liad breathed no word of its approach
to his old and intimate friend, and when the news reached
him, it seemed almost an act of personal injury. “ I
felt,” Mr. Gladstone said, “ as if Manning had murdered
my mother by mistake.” For twelve years the two men
did not meet, after which they occasionally saw each
other and renewed their correspondence. This was the
condition of affairs when Mr. Gladstone published his
pamphlet. As soon as it appeared Manning wrote a
letter to the New York Herald, contradicting its con-
clusions, and declaring that its publication was ” the
first event that has overcast a friendship of forty-five
years.” Mr. Gladstone replied to this letter in a second
pamphlet. At the close of his theological arguments,
he added the following passage : — ” I feel it necessary,
in concluding this answer, to state that Archbishop
Manning has fallen into most serious inaccuracy in his
letter of November 10th, where he describes my Expostu'
lation as the first event which has overcast a friendship
of forty-five years. I allude to the subject with regret ;
and without entering into details.” Manning replied in
a private letter.

“ My dear Gladstone,” he wrote, “ you say that I am
in error in stating that your former pamphlet is the first
act which has overcast our friendship.

“ If you refer to my act in 1851 in submitting to the
Catholic Church, by which we were separated for some
twelve years, I can understand it.

CARDINAL MANNING

07

‘‘ If you refer to any other act either on your part or
mine 1 am not conscious of it, and would desire to know
wliat it may be.

"" My act in 1851 may have overcast your friendship
for me. It did not overcast my friendship for you, as
I think the last years have shown.

“ You will not, I hope, think me over-sensitive in
asking for this explanation. Believe me, yours affec-
tionately,

‘‘ + H. E. M.’’

My dear Archbishop Manning,’* Mr. Gladstone
answered, “ it did, I confess, seem to me an astonishing
error to state in public that a friendship had not been
overcast for forty-five years until now, which your
letter declares has l^ccn suspended as to all action for
twelve, . . .

“ I wonder, loo, at your forgetting that during the
forty-five years I had been charged by you with doing
the work of Antichrist in regard to the Temporal Power
of the Pope. . . .

“ Our differences, my dear Archbishop, are indeed
profound. We refer them, I suppose, in humble silence
to a Higher Power, . . . You assured me once of your
prayers at all and at the most solemn time. I received
that assurance with gratitude and still cherish it. As
and when they move upwards, there is a meeting-point
for those whom a chasm separates below. I remain
always, affectionately yours,

W. E. Gladstone.”

Speaking of this correspondence in after years,
Cardinal Manning said — “ From the way in which
Mr. Gladstone alluded to the overcasting of our friend-
ship, people might have thought that I had picked , his
pocket.”

H

VIII

In 1875 Manning’s labours received their final reward :
he was made a Cardinal. His long and strange career,
with its high hopes, its bitter disappointments, its
struggles, its renunciations, had come at last to fruition
in a Princedom of the Church. “ Ask in faith and in
perfect confidence," he himself onee wrote, “ and God
will give us what we ask. You may say, ‘ But do you
mean that He will give us the very thing ? ’ That, God
has not said. God has said that He will give you what-
soever you ask ; but the form in whieh it will come, and
the time in which He will give it. He keeps in His own
power. Sometimes our prayers are answered in the very
things which we put from us ; sometimes it may be a
chastisement, or a loss, or a visitation against which
our hearts rise, and we seem to see that God has not only
forgotten us, but has begun to deal with us in severity.
Those very things are the answers to our prayers. He
knows what we desire, and He gives us the things which
we ask ; but in the form whieh His own Divine Wisdom
sees to be best.”

There was one to whom Manning’s elevation would no
doubt have given a peculiar satisfaction — his old friend
Monsignor Talbot. But this was not to be. That in-
dustrious worker in the cause of B.ome had been removed
some years previously to a sequestered Home at Passy,
whose padded walls were impervious to the rumours of
the outer world. Pius IX. had been much afflicted by
this unfortunate event ; he had not been able to resign
himself to the loss of his secretary, and he had given
orders that Monsignor Talbot’s apartment in the Vatican

98

CARDINAL MANNING

99

should be preserved precisely as he had left it, in case
of his return. But Monsignor Talbot never returned.
Manning’s feelings upon the subject appear to have been
less tender than the Pope’s. In all his letters, in all his
papers, in all his biographical memoranda, not a word of
allusion is to be found to the misfortune, nor to the death,
of the most loyal of his adherents. Monsignor Talbot’s
name disappears suddenly and for ever — like a stone cast
into the waters.

Manning was now an old man, and his outward form
had assumed that appearance of austere asceticism which
is, perhaps, the one thing immediately suggested by
his name to the ordinary Englishman. The spare and
stately form, the head, massive, emaciated, terrible, with
the great nose, the glittering eyes, and the mouth drawn
back and compressed into the grim rigidities’ of age, self-
mortification, and authority — such is the vision that
still lingers in the public mind — ^the vision which, actual
and palpable like some embodied memory of the Middle
Ages, used to pass and repass, less than a generation
since, through the streets of London. For the activities
of this extraordinary figure were great and varied. He
niled his diocese with the despotic zeal of a bom adminis-
trator. He threw himself into social work of every kind ;
he organised charities, he lectured on temperance. He
delivered innumerable sermons ; he produced an unending
series of devotional books. And he brooked no brother
near the throne : Newman languished in Birmingham ;
and even the Jesuits trembled and obeyed.

Nor was it only among his own community that his
energy and his experience found scope. He gradually
came to play an important part in public affairs, upon
questions of labour, poverty, and education. He sat on
Royal Commissions, and corresponded with Cabinet
Ministers. Atl^Wt no philanthropic meeting at the
Guildhall was considered complete without the presence
of Cardinal Manning. A special degree of precedence was

100

EMINENT VICTORIANS

accorded to him. Though the rank of a Cardinal-Arch*
bishop is officially unknown in England, his name appeared
in public documents — as a token, it must be supposed,
of personal consideration — above the names of peers and
bishops, and immediately below that of the Prince of
Wales.

In his private life he was secluded. The ambiguities
of his social position and his desire to maintain intact
the peculiar eminence of his office combined to hold him
aloof from the ordinary gatherings of society, though
on the rare occasions of his appearance among fashionable
and exalted persons he carried all before him. His
favourite haunt was the Athenaeum Club, where he sat
scanning the newspapers, or conversing with the old
friends of former days. He was a member, too, of that
distinguished body, the Metaphysical Society, which
met once a month during the palmy years of the Seventies
to discuss, in strict privacy, the fundamental problems of
the destiny of man. After a comfortable dinner at the
Grosvenor Hotel, the Society, which included Professor
Huxley and Professor Tyndall, Mr. John Morley and Sir
James Stephen, the Duke of Argyll, Lord Tennyson, and
Dean Church, would gather round to hear and discuss a
paper read by one of the members upon such questions
as “ What is death ? ” “ Is God unknowable ? ” or
“ The Nature of the Moral Principle.” Sometimes, how-
ever, the speculations of the society ranged in other direc-
tions. “ I think the paper that interested me most of
all that were ever read at our meetings,” says Sir Mount-
stuart Elphinstone Grant-Duff, “ was one on ‘ Wherein
consists the special beauty of imperfection and decay ? *
in which were propounded the questions ‘ Are not ruins
recognised and felt to be more beautiful than perfect
structures ? Why are they so ? Ought they to be so ? * ”
Unfortunately, however, the answers ^ven to these
questions by the Metaphysical Society ’mvc not been
recorded for the instruction of naankind.

CARDINAL MANNING

101

Manning read several papers, and Professor Huxley
fend Mr. John Morley listened with attention while he
expressed his views upon “ The Soul before and after
Death,” or explained why it is “ That legitimate Authority
is an Evidence of Truth.” Yet, somehow or other, his
Eminence never felt quite at ease in these assemblies ;
he was more at home v’ith audiences of a different kind ;
and we must look in other directions for the free and full
manifestation of his speculative gifts. In a series of
lectures, for instance, delivered in 1861 — it was the first
year of the imification of Italy — ^upon “The Present
Crisis of the Holy See, tested by Prophecy,” we catch some
glimpses of the kind of problems which were truly con-
genial to his mind. “ In the following pages,” he said,
“ I have endeavoured, but for so great a subject most
insufficiently, to show that what is passing in our times
is the prelude of the antichristian period of the final
dethronement of Christendom, and of the restoration of
society without God in the world.” “ My intention is,”
he continued, “ to examine the present relation of the
Church to the civil powers of the world, by the light of
a prophecy recorded by St. Paul.” This prophecy
(2 Thess. ii. 8 to 11) is concerned with the coming of Anti-
christ, and the greater part of the lectures is devoted to a
minute examination of this subject. There is no passage
in Scripture, Manning pointed out, relating to the coming
of Christ more explicit and express than those foretelling
Antichrist ; it therefore behoved the faithful to con-
sider the matter more fully than they are wont to do.
In the first place. Antichrist is a person. “ To deny the
personality of Antichrist is to deny the plain testimony
of Holy Scripture.” And we must remember that “ it is
a law of Holy Scripture that when persons are prophesied
of, persons appear.” Again, there was every reason to
believe that iwichrist, when he did appear, would turn
out to be a Jew. “ Such was the opinion of St. Irenseus,
St. Jerome* and of the author of the work De Consumma-

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EMINENT VICTORIANS

tione Mundi, ascribed to St. Hippolytus, and of a writer
of a Commentary on the Epistle to the Thessalonians,
ascribed to St. Ambrose, of many others, who add, that
he will be of the tribe of Dan : as, for instance, St.'Gregory
the Great, Theodor et, Aretas of Caesarea, and many
more. Such also is the opinion of Bellarminc, who calls
it certain. Lessius affirms that the Fathers, with unani-
mous consent, teach as imdoubted that Antichrist will
be a Jew. Ribera repeats the same opinion, and adds
that Aretas, St. Bede, Haymo, St. Anselm, and Rupert
affirm that for this reason the tribe of Dan is not numbered
among those who are sealed in the Apocalypse. . . .
Now I think no one can consider the dispersion and pro-
vidential preservation of the Jews among all the nations
of the world and the indestructible vitality of their race,
without believing that they are reserved for some future
action of His Judgment and Grace. And this is foretold
again and again in the New Testament.”

“ Our Lord,” continued Manning, widening the sweep
of his speculations, “ has said of these latter times : ‘ There
shall arise false Christs and false prophets, insomuch as to
deceive even the elect ; ’ that is, they shall not be deceived ;
but those who have lost faith in the Incarnation, such as
humanitarians, rationalists, and pantheists, may well be
deceived by any person of great political power and
success, who should restore the Jews to their own land,
and people Jerusalem once more with the sons of the
Patriarchs. And there is nothing in the political aspect
of the world which renders such a combination impos-
sible ; indeed, the state of Syria, and the tide of European
diplomacy, which is continually moving eastward, render
such an event within a reasonable probability.” Then
Manning threw out a bold suggestion. “A successful
medium,” he said, “might well pass himself off by his
preternatural endowments as the promised Messias.”

Manning went on to discuss the course of events
which would lead to the final catastrophe. But this

CARDINAL MANNING

103

subject, he confessed, “ deals with agencies so tran-
scendent and mysterious, that all I shall venture to do
will be to sketch in outline what the broad and luminous
prophecies, especially of the Book of Daniel and the
Apocalypse, set forth ; >vithout attempting to enter
into minute details, which can only be interpreted by the
event.” While applauding his modesty, we need follow
Manning no further in his commentary upon those broad
and luminous works ; except to observe that ” the apostacy
of the City of Rome from the Vicar of Christ and its
destruction by Antichrist ” was, in his opinion, certain.
Nor was he without authority for this belief. For it was
held by “ Malvenda, who writes expressly on the subjeet,”
and who, besides, “ states as the opinion of Ribera, Caspar
Melus, Viegas, Suarez, Bellarmine, and Bosius that Rome
shall apostatise from the faith.”

IX

The death of Pius IX. brought to Manning a last flattering
testimony of the confidence with which he was regarded
at the Court of Rome. In one of the i)rivate consultations
preceding the Conclave, a Cardinal suggested that Manning
should succeed to the Papacy. He replied that he w'as
unfitted for the position, because it was essential for the
interests of the Holy See that the next Pope should be an
Italian. The suggestion was pressed, but Manning held
firm. Thus it happened that the Triple Tiara seemed to
come, for a moment, within the grasp of the late Arch-
dcaeon of Chichester ; and the cautious hand refrained.

Leo XIII. was elected, and there was a great change
in the policy of the Vatican. Liberalism became the
order of the day. And now at last the opportunity seemed
ripe for an act which, in the opinion of the majority of
English Catholics, had long been due — ^the bestowal of
some mark of recognition from the Holy See upon the
labours and the sanctity of Father Newman. It was
felt that a Cardinal’s hat was the one fitting reward for
such a life, and accordingly the Duke of Norfolk, repre-
senting the Catholic laity of England, visited Manning,
and suggested that he should forward the proposal to the
Vatican. Manning agreed, and then there followed a
curious series of incidents — ^the last encounter in the
jarring lives of those two men. A letter was drawn up
by Maiming for the eye of the Pope, embodying the Duke
of Norfolk’s proposal ; but there was an unaccountable
delay in the transmission of this letter ; months passed,
and it had not reached the Holy Father. The whole matter
would, perhaps, have dropped out of sight and been

m

CARDINAL MANNING

105

forgotten, in a way which had become customary when
honours for Newman were concerned, had not the Duke
of Norfolk himself, when he was next in Rome, ventured
to recommend to Leo XIII. that Dr. Newman should be
made a Cardinal. His Holiness welcomed the proposal ;
but, he said, he could do nothing until he knew the views
of Cardinal Manning. Thereupon the Duke of Norfolk
wrote to Manning, explaining what had occurred ; shortly
afterwards Manning’s letter of recommendation, after a
delay of six months, reached the Pope, and the offer of
a Cardinalate was immediately dispatched to Newman.

But the affair was not yet over. The offer had been
made ; would it be accepted ? There was one difiBculty
in the way. Newman was now an infirm old man of
seventy-eight ; and it is a rule that all Cardinals who
are not also diocesan Bishops or Archbishops reside, as
a matter of course, at Home. The change would have
been impossible for one of his years — for one, too, whose
whole life was now bound up with the Oratory at Bir-
mingham. But, of course, there was nothing to prevent
His Holiness from making an exception in Newman’s
case, and allowing him to end his days in England. Yet
how was Newman himself to suggest this ? The offer of
the Hat had come to him as an almost miraculous token
of renewed confidence, of ultimate reconciliation. The
old, long, bitter estrangement was ended at last. “ The
cloud is lifted from me for ever he exclaimed when the
news reached him. It would be melancholy indeed if
the cup were now to be once more dashed from his lips
and he were obliged to refuse the signal honour. In his
perplexity he went to the Bishop of Birmingham, and
explained the whole situation. The Bishop assured him
that all would be well ; that he himself would communicate
with the authorities, and put the facts of the case before
them. Accordingly, while Newman wrote formally re-
fusing the Hat, on the ground of his unwillingness to leave
the Oratory, the Bishop wrote two 'letters to Manning,

106 EMINENT VICTORIANS

one official and one private, in which the following passages
occixrred : —

“ Dr. Newman has far too humble and delicate a mind
to dream of thinking or saying an3rthing which would
look like hinting at any kind of terms with the Sovereign
Pontiff. ... I think, however, that I ought to express
my own sense of what Dr. Newman’s dispositions are,
and that it will be expected of me. ... I am thoroughly
confident that nothing stands in the way of his most
grateful acceptance, except what he tells me greatly
distresses him, namely, the having to leave the Oratory
at a critical period of its existence and the impossibility
of his beginning a new life at his advanced age.”

And in his private letter the Bishop said : “ Dr, New-
man is very much aged, and softened with age and the
trials he has had, especially the loss of his two brethren,
St. John and Caswell ; he can never refer to these losses
without weeping and becoming speechless for the time.
He is very much affected by the Pope’s kindness, would,
I know, like to receive the great honour offered him, but
feels the whole difficulty at his age of changing his life,
or having to leave the Oratory, which I am sure he could
not do. If the Holy Father thinks well to confer on
him the dignity, leaving him where he is, I know how
immensely he would be gratified, and you will know how
generally the conferring on him the Cardinalate will be
applauded.”

These two letters, together with Newman’s refusal,
reached Manning as he was on the point of starting for
Rome. After he had left England, the following statement
appeared in the Times : —

“ Pope Leo XIII. has intimated his desire to raise
Dr. Newman to the rank of Cardinal, but with expressions
of deep respect for the Holy See, Dr. Newman has excused
himself from accepting the Purple.”

When Newman’s eyes fell upon this announcement', he
realised at once that a secret and powerful force was

CARDINAL MANNING

107

working against him. He trembled, as he had so often
trembled before ; and certainly the danger was not
imaginary. In the ordinary course of things, how could
such a paragraph have been inserted without his authority ?
And consequently, did it not convey to the world, not
only an absolute refusal which he had never intended,
but a wish on his part to einjihasise publicly his rejection
of the proffered honour ? Did it not imply that he had
lightly declined a proposal for which in reality he was
deeply thankful ? And when the fatal paragraph was
read in Rome, might it not actually lead to the offer of the
Cardinalate being finally withheld ?

In great agitation, Newman appealed to the Duke of
Norfolk. “ As to the statement,” he wrote, “ of my
refusing a Cardinal’s Hat, which is in the papers, you must
not believe it, for this reason : —

“ Of course it implies that an offer has been made me,
and I have sent an answer to it. Now I have ever under-
stood chat it is a point of propriety and honour to con-
sider such communications sacred. This statement there-
fore cannot come from me. Nor could it come from Rome,
for it was made public before my answer got to Rome.

“ It could only come, then, from some one who not
only read my letter, but, instead of leaving to the Pope
to interpret it, took upon himself to put an interpretation
upon it, and published that interpretation to the world.

“ A private letter, addressed to Roman Authorities,
is interpreted on its way and published in the English
papers. How is it possible that any one can have done
this 1 ”

The crushing indictment pointed straight at Maiming.
And it was true. Manning had done the impossible deed.
Knowing what he did, with the Bishop of Birmingham’s
two letters in his pocket, he had put it about that Newman
had refused the Hat. But a change had come over the
spirit of the Holy See. Things were not as they had once
been: Monsignor Talbot was at Passy, and Pio Nono

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EMINENT VICTORIANS

was— — where ? The Duke of Norfolk intervened once
again ; Manning was profuse in his apol<^ics for having
misunderstood Newman’s intentions, and hmried to the
Pope to rectify the error. Without hesitation, the
Sovereign Pontiff relaxed the rule of Roman residence,
and Newman became a Ceirdinal.

He lived to enjoy his glory for more than ten years.
Since he rarely left the Oratory, and since Manning never
visited Birmingham, the tw'o Cardinals met only once
or twice. After one of these occasions, on returning to
the Oratory, Cardinal Newman said, “ What do you think
Cardinal Manning did to me ? He kissed me I ”

On Newman’s death. Manning delivered a funeral
oration, which opened thus : —

“ We have lost our greatest witness for the Faith,
and we are all poorer and lower by the loss.

“ W'hen these tidings came to me, my first thought
was this, in what way can I, once more, show my love
and veneration for my brother and friend of more than
sixty years ? ”

In private, however, the surviving Cardinal’s tone was
apt to be more . . . direct. “ Poor Newman 1 ” he once
exclaimed in a moment of genial expansion. “ Poor
Newman ! He was a great hater ! ”

X

In that gaunt and gloomy building — more like a
barracks than an Episcopal palace — Archbishop’s House,
Westminster, Manning’s existence stretched itself out
into an extreme old age. As his years increased, his
activities, if that were possible, increased too. Meetings,
missions, lectures, sermons, articles, interviews, letters —
such things came upon him in redoubled multitudes, and
were dispatched with an unrelenting zeal. But this was
not all ; with age, he seemed to acquire what was almost
a new fervour, an unaccustomed, unexpected, freeing of
the spirit, filling him with preoccupations which he had
hardly felt before. ‘‘ They say I am ambitious,” he
noted in his diary, “ but do I rest in my ambition ? ” No,
assuredly he did not rest ; but he worked now with no
arrive pens^e for the greater glory of God. A kind of
frenzy fell upon him. Poverty, drunkenness, vice, all
the horrors and terrors of our civilisation, seized upon
his mind, and urged him forward to new fields of action
and new fields of thought. The temper of his soul as-
sumed almost a revolutionary cast. “ I am a Mosaic
Radical,” he exclaimed ; and, indeed, in the exaltation
of his energies, the incoherence of his conceptions, the
democratic urgency of his desires, combined with his
awe-inspiring aspect and his venerable age, it was easy
enough to trace the mingled qualities of the patriarch,
the prophet, and the demagogue. As, in his soiled and
shabby garments, the old man harangued the crowds of
Bermondsey or Peckham upon the virtues of Temperance,
assuring them, with all the passion of conviction, as a
final argument, that the majority of the Apostles were

109

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total abstainers, this Prince of the Church might have
passed as a leader of the Salvation Army. His popularity
was immense, reaching its height during the great Dock
Strikes of 1889, when, after the victory of the men was
assured. Manning was able, by his persuasive eloquence
and the weight of his character, to prevent its being carried
to excess. After other conciliators — among whom was
the Bishop of London — ^had given up the task in disgust,
the octogenarian Cardinal worked on with indefatigable
resolution. At last, late at night, in the schools in Kirby
Street, Bermondsey, he rose to address the strikers. An
enthusiastic eye-witness has described the scene. “ Un-
accustomed tears glistened in the eyes of his rough and
work-stained hearers as the Cardinal raised his hand,
and solemnly urged them not to prolong one moment
more than they could help the perilous uncertainty and
the sufferings of their wives and children. Just above his
uplifted hand was a figure of the Madonna and Child ;
and some among the men tell how a sudden light seemed to
swim round it as the speaker pleaded for the women and
children. When he sat down all in the room knew that
he had won the day, and that, so far as the Strike Com-
mittee was concerned, the matter was at an end.”

In those days, there were strange visitors at Arch-
bishop’s House. -Careful priests and conscientious secre-
taries wondered what the world was coming to when they
saw labour leaders like Mr. John Bums and Mr. Ben Tillett,
and land-reformers like Mr. Henry George, being ushered
into the presence of his Eminence. Even the notorious
Mr. Stead appeared, and his scandalous paper with its
unspeakable revelations lay upon the Cardinal’s table.
This proved too much for one of the faithfid tonsured
dependents of the place, and he ventured to expostulate
with his master. But he never did so again.

When the guests were gone, and the great room was
empty, the old man would draw himself nearer to the
enormous fire, and review once more, for the thousandth

CARDINAL MANNING

111

time, the long adventure of his life. He would bring out
his diaries and his memoranda, he would rearrange his
notes, he would turn over again the yellow leaves of faded
forrespondenees ; seizing his pen, he would pour out his
comments and reflections, and fill, with an extraordinary
solicitude, page after page with elucidations, explanations,
justifications, of the vanished incidents of a remote past.
He would snip with scissors the pages of ancient journals,
and with delicate ecclesiastical fingers drop unknown
mysteries into the flames.

Sometimes he would turn to the four red folio scrap-
books with their collection of newspaper cuttings con-
cerning himself over a period of thirty years. Then the
])ale checks would flush and the close-drawn lips grow
more menacing even than before. “ Stupid, mulish malice,”
he would note. “ Pure lying — conscious, deliberate and
designed.” “ Suggestive lying. Personal animosity is at
the bottom of this.”

And then he would suddenly begin to doubt. After
all, where was he ? What had he accomplished ? Had
any of it been worth while ? Had he not been out of the
world all his life ? Out of the world ! “ Croker’s ‘ Life
and Letters,’ and Hayward’s ‘ Letters,’ ” he notes, “ are
so full of politics, literature, action, events, collision of
mind with mind, and that with such a multitude of men
in every state of life, that when I look back, it seems as
if I had been simply useless.” And again, “ the complete
isolation and exclusion from the official life of England
in which I have lived, makes me feel as if I had done
nothing.” He struggled to console hunsclf with the
reflexion that all this was only “ the natural order.” “ If
the natural order is moved by the supernatural order,
then I may not have done nothing. Fifty years of witness
for God and His Truth, I hope, has not been in vain.”
But the same thoughts recurred. “ In reading Macaulay’s
life I had a harmting feeling that his had been a life of
public utility and mine a vita umbratUis, a life in the shade.’*

112

EMINENT VICTORIANS

Ah 1 it was God’s will. “ Mine has been a life of fifty
years out of the w'orld as Gladstone’s has been in it. The*
Avork of his life in this world is manifest. I hope mine
may be in the next. I suppose our Lord called me out
of the world because he saAv that I should lose my soul
in it.” Clearly, that was the explanation.

And yet he remained sufficiently in the world to dis-
charge with absolute efficiency the complex government
of his diocese almost up to the last moment of his existence.
Though his bodily strength gradually ebbed, the vigour
of his mind was undismayed. At last, supported by
cushions, he continued, by means of a dictated corre-
spondence, to exert his accustomed rule. Only occasion-
ally Avould he lay aside his work, to plunge into the yet
more necessary duties of devotion. Never again would
he preach ; never again would he put into pract ice those
three salutary rules of his in choosing a subject for a
sermon : “ (1) asking God to guide the choice ; (2) applying
the matter to myself ; (3) making the sign of the cross on
my head and heart and lips in honour of the Sacred
Mouth ; ” but he could still pray ; he could turn especially
to the Holy Ghost. “ A very simple but devout person,”
he wrote in one of his latest memoranda, “ asked me why
in my first volume of sermons I said so little about the
Holy Ghost. I was not aware of it ; but I found it to be
true. I at once resolved that I would make a reparation
every day of my life to the Holy Ghost. This I have never
failed to do to this day. To this I owe the light and faith
which brought me into the true fold. I bought all the
books I could about the Holy Ghost. I worked out the
truths about His personality, His presence, and His office.
This made me understand the last paragraph in the Apostles’
Creed and made me a Catholic Christian.”

So, though Death came slowly, struggling step by
step with that bold and tenacious spirit, when he did come
at last the Cardinal was ready. Robed in his archie-
piscopal vestments, his rochet, Us girdle, and his mozeta,

CARDINAL MANNING

118

with the scarlet biretta on his head, and the pectoral cross
upon his breast, he made his solemn Profession of Faith
in the Holy Roman Church. A crowd of lesser digni-
taries, each in the garments of his office, attended the
ceremonial. The Bishop of Salford held up the Pontificale
and the Bishop of Amycla bore the wax taper. The
provost of Westminster, on his knees, read aloud the
Profession of Faith, surrounded by the Canons of
the Diocese. Towards those who gathered about him the
dying man was still able to show some signs of recogni-
tion, and even, perhaps, of affection ; yet it seemed that
his chief preoccupation, up to the very end, was with his
obedience to the rules prescribed by the Divine Authority.
“ I am glad to have been able to do everything in due
order,” were among his last words. “ Si fort qu’on soit,”
says one of the profoundest of the observers of the human
heart, “ on peut ^prouver le besoin de s’incliner devant
quelqu’un ou quelque chose. S’incliner devant Dieu,
e’est toujours le moins humiliant.”

Manning died on January 14th, 1892, in the eighty-
fifth year of his age. A few days later Mr. Gladstone
took occasion, in a letter to a friend, to refer to his relations
witlx the late Cardinal. Manning’s conversion was, he
said, “ altogether the severest blow that ever befell me.
In a late letter the Cardinal termed it a quarrel, but in
my reply I told him it was not a quarrel, but a death ;
and that was the truth. Since then there have been
vicissitudes. But I am quite certain that to the last
his personal feelings never changed ; and I believe also
that he kept a promise made in 1851, to remember me
before God at the most solemn moments ; a promise
which I greatly valued. The whole subject is to me at
once of extreme interest and of considerable restraint.”
” His reluctance to die,” concluded Mr. Gladstone, “ may
be explained by an intense anxiety to complete unfulfilled
service.”

The funeral was the occasion of a popular demonstration

1

114

EMINENT VICTORIANS

such as has rarely been witnessed in the streets of
London. The route of the procession was lined by
vast crowds of working people, whose imaginations, in
some instinctive manner, had been touched. Many who
had hardly seen him declared that in Cardinal Manning
they had lost their best friend. Was it the magnetic
v^our of the dead man’s spirit that moved them ? Or
was it his valiant disregard of common custom and those
conventional reserves and poor punctilios which are wont
to hem about the great ? Or was it something untameable
in his glances and in his gestures ? Or was it, perhaps,
the mysterious glamour lingering about him of the antique
organisation of Rome ? For whatever cause, the mind
of the people had been impressed ; and yet, after all, the
impression was more acute than lasting. The Cardinal’s
memory is a dim thing to-day. And he who descends
into the crypt of that Cathedral which Manning never lived
to see, will observe, in the quiet niche with the sepulchral
monument, that the dust lies thick on the strange, the
incongruous, the almost impossible object which, with
its elaborations of dependent tassels, hangs down from
the dim vault like some forlorn and forgotten trophy —
the Hat.

CARDINAL MANNING

115

BIBLIOGRAPHY

E. S. Purcell. Life of Cardinal Manning.

A. W. Hutton. Cardinal Manning.

J. E. C. Bodley. Cardinal Manning and Other Essays.

F. W. Ckimisb. The English Church in the Nineteenth CerUury.

Dean Church. The Oxford Movement.

i^ir J. T. Coleridge. Memoir of the Rev. John Kthle.

HurreU Froude. Remains.

Cardinal Newman. Letters and Correspondence in the English Church,
Apologia >pro Vita Sua.

Wilfrid Ward. Life of Cardinal Newman. W. O. Ward and the Oxford
Movement. W. O. Ward and the Catholic Revival. Life of Cardinal
Wiseman.

II. P. Liddon. Life of E. B. Pusey.

Tracis for the Times, by Members of the Univorbity of Oxford.

Lord Morley. Life of Gladstone.

Lives of the Saints, edited by J. H. Newman.

Herbert Paul. Life of J. A. Froude.

Mark Pattison. Autobiography.

T. Mozley. Letters from Rome on the Occasion of the (Ecumenical Council,
Lord Acton. Letters.

H. L. Smith and V. Nash. The Story of the Dockers' Strike,

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE

/ 0 i

I 1 »1 1 \L1 Nu 11 1 INC, \I I

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE
I

Every one knows the popular conception of Florence
Nightingale. The saintly, self-sacrificing woman, the
delicate maiden of high degree who threw aside the
pleasures of a life of ease to succour the afflicted, the
Lady with the Lamp, gliding through the horrors of
the hospital at Scutari, and consecrating with the radiance
of her goodness the dying soldier’s couch — the vision is
familiar to all. But the truth was different. The Miss
Nightingale of fact was not as facile fancy painted her.
She worked in another fashion, and towards another
end ; she moved under the stress of an impetus which
finds no place in the popular imagination. A Demon
possessed her. Now demons, whatever else they may be,
are full of interest. And so it happens that in the real
Miss Nightingale there was more that was interesting
than in the legendary one ; there was also less that was
agreeable.

Her family was extremely well-to-do, and connected
by marriage with a spreading circle of other well-to-do
families. There was a large country house in Derby-
shire ; there was another in the New Forest ; there were
Mayfair rooms for the London season and all its finest
parties ; there were tours on the Continent with even
more than the usual number of Italian operas and of
glimpses at the celebrities of Paris. Brought up among
such advantages, it was only natural to suppose that
Florence would show a proper appreciation of them by
doing her duty in that state of life unto which it had

119

120

EMINENT VICTORIANS

pleased God to call her — in other words, by marrying,
after a fitting number of dances and dinner-parties, an
eligible gentleman, and living happily ever afterwards.
Her sister, her cousins, all the young ladies of her acquain-
tance, were either getting ready to do this or had already
done it. It was inconceivable that Florence should dream
of anything else ; yet dream she did. Ah ! To do her
duty in that state of life unto which it had pleased God
to call her ! Assuredly she would not be behindhand in
doing her duty ; but unto what state of life had it pleased
God to call her ? That was the question. God’s calls
are many, and they are strange. Unto what state of life
had it pleased Him to call Charlotte Corday, or Elizabeth
of Hungary ? What was that secret voice in her ear, if
it was not a call ? Why had she felt, from her earliest
years, those mysterious promptings towards . . . she
hardly knew what, but certainly towards something very
different from anything around her ? Why, as a child
in the nursery, when her sister had shown a healthy
pleasure in tearing her dolls to pieces, had she shown an
almost morbid one in sewing them up again ? Why was
she driven now to minister to the poor in their cottages,
to watch by sick-beds, to put her dog’s wounded paw into
elaborate splints as if it was a human being ? Why was
■*er head filled with queer imaginations of the country
house at Embley turned, by some enchantment, into a
hospital, with herself as matron moving about among
the beds ? Why was even her vision of heaven itself
filled with suffering patients to whom she was being
useful ? So she dreamed and wondered, and, taking out
her diary, she poured into it the agitations of her soul.
And then the bell rang, and it was time to go and dress
> for dinner.

As the years passed, a restlessness began to grow upon
her. She was unhappy, and at last she knew it. Mrs.
Nightingale, too, began to notice that there was some-
thing wrong. It was very odd ; what could be the matter

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE 121

with dear Flo ? Mr. Nightingale suggested that a husband
might be advisable ; but the curious thing was that she
seemed to take no interest in husbands. And with her
attractions, and her accomplishments, too ! There was
nothing in the world to prevent her making a really bril-
liant match. But no ! She would think of nothing but
how to satisfy that singular craving of hers to be doing
something. As if there was not plenty to do in any case,
in the ordinary way, at home. There was the china to
look after, and there was her father to be read to after
dinner. Mrs. Nightingale could not understand it ; and
then one day her perplexity w'as changed to consternation
and alarm. Florence announced an extreme desire to go
to Salisbury Hospital for several months as a nurse ; and
she confessed to some visionary plan of eventually setting
up in a house of her own in a neighbouring village, and
there founding “ something like a Protestant Sisterhood,
without vows, for women of educated feelings.” The
whole scheme was summarily brushed aside as prepos-
terous ; and Mrs. Nightingale, after the first shock of
terror, was able to settle down again more or less com-
fortably to her embroidery. But Florence, who was noAV
twenty-five and felt that the dream of her life had been
shattered, came near to desperation.

And, indeed, the difficulties in her path were great.
For not only was it an almost unimaginable thing in
those days for a woman of means to make her own way
in the world and to live in independence, but the particular
profession for which Florence was clearly marked out
both by her instincts and her capacities was at that time
a peculiarly disreputable one. A “ nurse ” meant then
a coarse old woman, always ignorant, usually dirty, often
brutal, a Mrs. Gamp, in bunched-up sordid garments,
tippling at the brandy-bottle or indulging in worse irregu-
larities. The nurses in the hospitals were especially
notorioiis for immoral conduct; sobriety was almost
unknown among them ; and they could hardly be tnisted

122

EMINENT VICTORIANS

to carry out the simplest medical duties. Certainly,
things have changed since those days ; and that they
have changed is due, far more than to any other human
being, to Miss Nightingale herself. It is not to be won-
dered at that her parents should have shuddered at the
notion of their daughter devoting her life to such an occu-
pation. “ It was as if,” she herself said afterwards, “ I
had wanted to be a kitchen-maid.” Yet the want, absurd,
impracticable as it was, not only remained fixed im-
movably in her heart, but grew in intensity day by day.
Her wretchedness deepened into a morbid melancholy.
Everything about her was vile, and she herself, it was
clear, to have deserved such misery, was even viler than
her surroundings. Yes, she had sinned — “ standing before
God’s judgment seat.” “No one,” she declared, “has so
grieved the Holy Spirit ” ; of that she was quite certain.
It was in vain that she prayed to be delivered from vanity
and hypocrisy, and she could not bear to smile or to be
gay, “ because she hated God to hear her laugh, as if she
had not repented of her sin.”

A weaker spirit would have been overwhelmed by the
load of such distresses — ^would have yielded or snapped.
But this extraordinary young woman held firm, and
fought her way to victory. With an amazing persistency,
during the eight years that followed her rebuff over Salis-
biu-y Hospital, she struggled and worked and planned.
While superficially she was carrying on the life of a
brilliant girl in high society, while internally she was a
prey to the tortures of regret and of remorse, she yet
possessed the energy to collect the knowledge and to
undergo the experience which alone could enable her to
do what she had determined she would do in the end.
In secret she devoured the reports of medical commissions,
the pamphlets of sanitary authorities, the histories of
hospitals and homes. She spent the intervals of the
London season in ragged schools and workhouses. When
she went abroad with her family, she used her spare time

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE 128

so well that there was hardly a great hospital in Europe
with which she was not acquainted, liardly a great city
whose slums she had not passed through. She managed
to spend some days ia a convent school in Rome, and some
weeks as a “ Soeur de Charity ” in Paris. Then, whUe
her mother and sister were taking the waters at Carlsbad,
she succeeded in slipping off to a nursing institution at
Kaiserswerth, where she remained for more than three
months. This was the critical event of her life. The
experience which she gained as a nurse at Kaiserswerth
formed the foundation of all her future action and finally
fixed her in her career.

But one other trial awaited her. The allurements of
the world she had brushed aside with disdain and loathing ;
she had resisted the subtler temptation which, in her
weariness, had sometimes come upon her, of devoting
her baffled energies to art or literature ; the last ordeal
appeared in the shape of a desirable young man. Hitherto,
her lovers had been nothing to her but an added burden

and a mockery ; but now . For a moment, she wavered.

A new feeling swept over her — a feeling which she had
never known before, which she was never to know again.
The most powerful and the profoimdest of all the instincts
of humanity laid claim upon her. But it rose before her,
that instinct, arrayed — ^how could it be otherwise ? — ^in
the inevitable habiliments of a Victorian marriage ; and
she had the strength to stamp it underfoot. “ I have
an intellectual nature which requires satisfaction,” she
noted, “ and that would find it in him. I have a passional
nature which requires satisfaction, and that would find it
in him. I have a moral, an active nature which requires
satisfaction, and that would not find it in his life. Some-
times I think that I will satisfy my passional nature at
all events. . . .” But no, she knew in her heart that it
could not be. “ To be nailed to a continuation and
exaggeration of my present life ... to put it out of my
power ever to be able to seize the chance of forming for

124

EMINENT VICTORIANS

myself a true and rich life ” — ^that would be a suicide.
She made her choice, and refused what was at least a
certain happiness for a visionary good which might never
come to her at all. And so she returned to her old life of
waiting and bitterness. “ The thoughts and feelings that
I have now,” she wrote, “ I can remember since I was
six years old. A profession, a trade, a necessary occupa-
tion, something to fill and employ all my faculties, I have
always felt essential to me, I have always longed for.
$he first thought I can remember, and the last, was
nursing work ; and in the absence of this, education
work, but more the education of the bad than of the
young. . . . Everything has been tried, foreign travel,
kind friends, everything. My God ! What is to become
of me ? ” A desirable young man ? Dust and ashes !
What was there desirable in such a thing as that ? “In
my thirty-first year,” she noted in her diary, “ I see nothing
desirable but death.”

Three more years passed, and then at last the pressure
of time told ; her family seemed to realise that she was
old enough and strong enough to have her way ; and she
became the superintendent of a charitable nursing home
in Harley Street. She had gained her independence,
though it was in a meagre sphere enough ; and her mother
was still not quite resigned : surely Florence might at
least spend the summer in the country. At times, indeed,
among her intimates, Mrs. Nightingale almost wept.
“ We are ducks,” she said with tears in her eyes, “ who
have hatched a wild swan.” But the poor lady was
wrong ; it was not a swan that they had hatched ; it
was an eagle.

II

Miss Nightingale had been a year in her nursing-home
in Harley Street, when Fate knocked at the door. The
Crimean War broke out ; the battle of the Alma was
fought ; and the terrible condition of our military hos-
pitals at Scutari began to be known in England. It
sometimes happens that the plans of Providence are a
little difficult to follow, but on this occasion all was
plain ; there was a perfect co-ordination of events. For
years Miss Nightingale had been getting ready ; at last
she was prepared — experienced, free, mature, yet still
young — she was thirty-four — desirous to serve, accus-
tomed to command : at that precise moment the desperate
need of a great nation came, and she was there to satisfy
it. If the war had fallen a few years earlier, she would
have lacked the knowledge, perhaps even the power, for
such a work ; a few years later and she would, no doubt,
have been fixed in the routine of some absorbing task,
and moreover, she would have been growing old. Nor
was it only the coincidence of Time that was remarkable.
It so fell out that Sidney Herbert was at the War Office
and in the Cabinet ; and Sidney Herbert was an intimate
friend of Miss Nightingale’s, convinced, from personal
experience in charitable work, of her supreme capacity.
After such premises, it seems hardly more than a matter
of course that her letter, in which she offered her services
for the East, and Sidney Herbert’s letter, in which he
asked for them, should actually have crossed in the post.
Thus it all happened, without a bitch. The appointment
was made, and even Mrs. Nightingale, overawed by the

126

126

EMINENT VICTORIANS

magnitude of the venture, could only approve. A pair
of faithful friends offered themselves as personal atten-
dants ; thirty-eight nurses were collected ; and within a
week of the crossing of the letters Miss Nightingale,
amid a great burst of popular enthusiasm, left for
Constantinople.

Among the numerous letters which she received on
her departure was one from Dr. Manning, who at that
time was working in comparative obscurity as a Catholic
priest in Bayswatcr. “ God will keep you,” he wrote,
“ and my prayer for you will be that your one object
of Worship, Pattern of Imitation, and source of -consola-
tion and strength may be the Sacred Heart of our Divine
Lord.”

To what extent Dr. Manning's prayer was answered
must remain a matter of doubt ; but this much is certain,
that, if ever a prayer was needed, it was needed then for
Florence Nightingale. For dark as had been the picture
of the state of affairs at Scutari, revealed to the English
imblic in the despatches of the Times correspondent and
in a multitude of private letters, yet the reality turned
out to be darker still. What had occurred ■w4s, in brief,
the complete break-down of our medical arrangements at
the seat of war. The origins of this awful failure were
complex and manifold ; they stretched back through long
years of peace and carelessness in England ; they could
be traced through endless ramifications of administrative
incapacity — from the inherent faults of confused systems
to the petty bunglings of minor officials, from the inevit-
able ignorance of Cabinet Ministers to the fatal exactitudes
of narrow routine. In the inquiries which followed it
was clearly shown that the evil was in reality that worst
of all evils— one which has been caused by nothing in
particular and for which no one in particular is to blame.
The whole organisation of the war machine was incom-
petent and out of date. The old Duke had sat for a
generation at the Horse Guards repressing innovations

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE 127

with an iron hand. There was an extraordinary over>
lapping of authorities, an almost incredible shifting of
responsibilities to and fro. As for such a notion as the
creation and the maintenance of a really adequate medical
service for the army — ^in that atmosphere of aged chaos,
how could it have entered anybody’s head ? Before the
war, the easy-going officials at Westminster were naturally
persuaded that all was well — or at least as well as could
be expected ; when some one, for instance, actually had the
temerity to suggest the formation of a corps of army
nurses, he was at once laughed out of court. When the
war had begun, the gallant British officers in control of
affairs had other things to think about than the petty
details of medical organisation. Who had bothered with
such trifles in the Peninsula ? And surely, on that occa-
sion, we had done pretty well. Thus the most obvious
precautions were neglected, the most necessary prepara-
tions put off from day to day. The principal medical
officer of the army, Dr. Hall, was summoned from India
at a moment’s notice, and was unable to visit England
before taking up his duties at the front. And it was not
until after the battle of the Alma, when we had been at
war for many months, that we acquired hospital accommo-
dation at Scutari for more than a thousand men. Errors,
follies, and vices on the part of individuals there doubtless
were ; but, in the general reckoning, they were of small
account — insignificant symptoms of the deep disease of
the body politic — ^the enormous calamity of adminis-
trative collapse.

Miss Nightingale arrived at Scutari — a suburb of
Constantinople, on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus —
on November 4th, 1854 ; it was ten days after the battle'
of Balaclava, and the day before the battle of Inkerman.
The organisation of the hospitals, which had already
given way under the stress of the battle of the Alma,
was now to be subjected to the further pressure which
these two desperate and bloody engagements implied.

128

EMINENT VICTORIANS

Great detachments of wounded were already beginning to
pour in. The men, after receiving such summary treat-
ment as could be given them at the smaller hospitals in
the Crimea itself, were forthwith shipped in batches of two
hundred across the Black Sea to Scutari. This voyage was
in normal times one of four days and a half ; but the
times were no longer normal, and now the transit often
lasted for a fortnight or three weeks. It received, not
without reason, the name of “ the middle passage.’'
Between, and sometimes on the decks, the wounded, the
sick, and the dying were crowded — ^men who had just
undergone the amputation of limbs, men in the clutches
of fever or of frostbite, men in the last stages of dysentery
and cholera — ^without beds, sometimes without blankets,
often hardly clothed. The one or two surgeons on board
did what they could ; but medical stores were lacking,
and the only form of nursing available was that provided
by a handful of invalid soldiers, who were usually them-
selves prostrate by the end of the voyage. There was no
other food beside the ordinary salt rations of ship diet ;
and even the water was sometimes so stored that it was
out of reach of the weak. For many months, the average
of deaths during these voyages was 7i in the thousand ;
the corpses were shot out into the waters ; and who shall
say that they were the most unfortunate ? At Scutari,
the landing-stage, constructed with all the perverseness
of Oriental ingenuity, could only be approached with
great difficulty, and, in rough weather, not at all. When
it was reached, what remained of the men in the ships
had first to be disembarked, and then conveyed up a
steep slope of a quarter of a mile to the nearest of the
hospitals. The most serious cases might be put upon
stretchers — ^for there were far too few for all; the rest
were carried or dragged up the hill by such convalescent
soldiers as could be got together, who were not too obviously
infirm for the work. At last the journey was accom-
plished ; slowly, one by one, living or dying, the wounded

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE 129

weTe carried up into the hospital. And in the hospital
what did they find ?

Lasciate ogni speranza, voi cVerUraie: the delusive
doors bore no such inscription ; and yet behind them
Hell yawned. Want, neglect, confusion, misery — ^in every
shape and in every degree of intensity — ^filled the endless
corridors and the vast apartments of the gigantic barrack-
house, whieh, without forethought or preparation, had
been hurriedly set aside as the chief shelter for the victims
of the war. The very building itself was radically de-
fective. Huge sewers underlay it, and cess-pools loaded
with filth wafted their poison into the upper rooms. The
floors were in so rotten a condition that many of them
could not be scrubbed ; the walls were thick with dirt ;
incredible multitudes of vermin swarmed everywhere.
And, enormous as the building was, it was yet too small.
It contained fovu: miles of beds, crushed together so close
that there was but just room to pass between them.
Under such conditions, the most elaborate system of
ventilation might well have been at fault ; but here there
was no ventilation. The stench was indescribable. “ I
have been well acquainted,” said Miss Nightingale, “ with
the dwellings of the worst parts of most of the great
cities in Europe, but have never been in any atmosphere
which I could compare with that of the Barrack Hospital
at night.” The structural defects were equalled by the
deficiencies in the conunonest objects of hospital use.
There were not enough bedsteads ; the sheets were of
canvas, and so coarse that the wounded men recoiled from
them, begging to be left in their blankets ; there was no
bedroom furniture of any kind, and empty beer-bottles
were used for candlesticks. There were no basins, no
towels, no soap, no brooms, no mops, no trays, no plates ;
there were neither slippers nor scissors, neither shoe-
brushes nor blackii^ ; there were no knives or forks or
spoons. The supply of fuel was constantly deficient.

cooking arrangements were preposterously inadequate,

K

180 EMINENT VICTORIANS

and the laundry was a farce. As for purely medical
materials, the tale was no better. Stretchers, splints,
bandages — ^all were lacking ; and so were the most ordinary
drugs.

To replace such wants, to struggle against such diffi-
culties, there was a handful of men overburdened by the
strain of ceaseless work, boimd down by the traditions
of official routine, and enfeebled cither by old age or
inexperience or sheer incompetence. They had proved
utterly imequal to their task. The principal doctor was
lost in the imbecilities of a senile optimism. The wretched
official whose business it was to provide lor the wants
of the hospital was tied fast hand and foot by red tape.
A few of the younger doctors struggled valiantly, but
what could they do ? Unprepared, disorganised, with
such help only as they could find among the miserable
band of convalescent soldiers drafted off to tend their
sick comrades, they were faced with disease, mutilation,
and death in all their most appalling forms, crowded multi-
tudinously about them in an ever increasing mass. They
were like men in a shipwreck, fighting, not for safety,
but for the next moment’s bare existence — ^to gain, by
yet another frenzied effort, some brief respite from the
waters of destruction.

In these smroundings, those who had been long
inured to scenes of human suffering — surgeons with a
world-wide knowledge of agonies, soldiers familiar with
fields of carnage, niissionaries with remembrances of
famine and of plague — ^yet found a depth of horror which
they had never known before. There were moments,
there were places, in the Barrack Hospital at Scutari,
where the strongest hand was struck with trembling, and
the boldest eye would turn away its gaze.

Miss Nightingale came, and she, at any rate, in that
Inferno, did not abandon hope. For one thing, she
brought material succour. Before she left Lemdon she
had consulted Dr. Andrew Smith, the head of the Army

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE

181

Medical Board, as to whether it woidd be useful to take
out stores of any kind to Scutari ; and Dr. Andrew Smith
had told her that “ nothing was needed.” Even Sidney
Herbert had given her similar assurances ; possibly, owing
to an oversight, there might have been some delay in the
delivery of the medical stores, which, he said, had been
sent out from England “ in profusion,” but “ four days
would have remedied this.” She preferred to trust her
own instincts, and at Marseilles purchased a large quantity
of miscellaneous provisions, which were of the utmost
use at Scutari. She came, too, amply provided with
money — ^in all, dtiring her stay in the East, about £7000
reaehed her from private sources ; and, in addition, she
was able to avail herself of another valuable means of
help. At the same time as herself, Mr. Macdonald, of
the Times, had arrived at Scutari, charged with the duty
of administering the large sums of money collected through
the agency of that newspaper in aid of the sick and
wounded ; and Mr. Macdonald had the sense to see that
the best use he could make of the Times Fund was to put
it at the disposal .of Miss Nightingale. “ I cannot con-
ceive,” wrote an eye-witness, ” as I now calmly look back
on the first three weeks after the arrival of the wounded
from Inkerman, how it could have been possible to have
avoided a state of things too disastrous to contemplate,
had not Miss Nightingale been there, with the means
placed at her disposal by Mr. Macdonald.” But the
official view was different. What 1 Was the public
service to admit, by accepting outside charity, that it
was unable to disdiarge its own duties without the assis-
tance of private and irregular benevolence ? Never I
And accordingly when Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, our
ambassador at Constantinople, was asked by Mr. Mac-
donald to indicate how the Times Fund could best be
employed, he answered that there was indeed one object
to which it might very well be devoted — ^the building of
9 n English Protestant Church at Pera.

182

EMINENT VICTORIANS

Mr. Macdonald did not waste further time with Lord
Stratford, and immediately joined forces with Miss
Nightingale. But, with such a frame of mind in the
highest quarters, it is easy to imagine the kind of disgust
and alarm with which the sudden intrusion of a band
of amateurs and females must have filled the minds of
the ordinary officer and the ordinary military surgeon.
They could not understand it ; what had women to do
with war ? Honest Colonels relieved their spleen by the
cracking of heavy jokes about “ the Bird ” ; while poor
Dr. Hall, a rough terrier of a man, who had worried his
way to the top of his profession, was struck speechless with
astonishment, and at last observed that Miss Nightingale’s
appointment was extremely droll.

Her position was, indeed, an official one, but it was
hardly the easier for that. In the hospitals it was her
duty to provide the services of herself and her nurses
when they were asked for by the doctors, and not until
then. At first some of the surgeons would have nothing
to say to her, and, though she was welcomed by others,
the majority were hostile and suspicious. But gradually
she gained ground. Her good will could not be denied,
and her capacity could not be disregarded. With con-
summate tact, with all the gentleness of supreme strength,
she managed at last to impose her personality upon the
susceptible, overwrought, discouraged, and helpless group
of men in authority who surrounded her. She stood
firm ; she was a rock in the angry ocean ; with her alone
was safety, comfort, life. And so it was that hope dawned
at Scutari. The reign of chaos and old night began to
dwindle ; order came upon the scene, and common sense,
and forethought, and decision, radiating out from the
little room off the great gallery in the Barrack Hospital
where, day and night, the Lady Superintendent was at
her task. Progress might be slow, but it was sure. The
first sign of a great change came with the appearance of
some of those necessary objects with which the hospitals

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE 188

had been unprovided for months. The sick men began
to enjoy the use of towels and soap, knives and forks,
combs and tooth-brushes. Dr. Hall might snort when
he heard of it, asking, with a growl, what a soldier wanted
with a tooth-brush ; but the good work went on.
Eventually the whole business of purveying to the
hospitals was, in effect, carried out by Miss Nightingale.
She alone, it seemed, whatever the contingency, knew
where to lay her hands on what was wanted ; she alone
could dispense her stores with readiness ; above all she
alone possessed the art of circumventing the pernicious
influences of official etiquette. This was her greatest
enemy, and sometimes even she was baffled by it. On
one occasion 27,000 shirts, sent out at her instance by the
Home Government, arrived, were landed, and were only
waiting to be unpacked. But the official “ Purveyor ”
intervened ; “ he could not unpack them,” he said,

“ without a Board.” Miss Nightingale pleaded in vain ;
the sick and wounded lay half-naked shivering for want
of clothing ; and three weeks elapsed before the Board
released the shirts. A little later, however, on a similar
occasion. Miss Nightingale felt that she could assert her
own authority. She ordered a Government consignment
to be forcibly opened, while the miserable “ Purveyor ”
stood by, wringing his hands in departmental agony.

Vast quantities of valuable stores sent from Eng-
land lay, she found, engulfed in the bottomless abyss of
the Turkish Customs House. Other ship-loads, buried
beneath munitions of war destined for Balaclava, passed
Scutari wr^iiut a sign, and thus hospital materials were
sometimes carried to and fro three times over the Black
Sea, before they reached their destination. The whole
system was clearly at fault, and Miss Nightingale sug-
gested to the home authorities that a Government Store
House should be instituted at Scutari for the reception
and distribution of the consignments. Six months after
her arrival this was done.

184 EMINENT VICTORIANS

In the meantime she had reorganised the kit(dxens and
the laundries in the hospitals. The Il-cooked hunks of
meat, vilely served at irregular intervals, which had
hitherto been the only diet for the sick men were replaced
by punctual meals, well-prepared and appetising, while
strengthening extra foods — soups and wines and jellies
(“ preposterous luxuries,” snarled Dr. Hall) — ^were dis-
tributed to those who needed them. One thing, however,
she could not effect. The separation of the bones from the
meat was no part of official cookery : the rule was that
the food must be divided into equal portions, and if some
of the portions were all bone — well, every man must take
his chance. The rule, perhaps, was not a very good one y
but there it was. “ It would require a new Regulation
of the Service,” she was told, “ to bone the meat.” As
for the washing arrangements, they were revolutionised.
Up to the time of Miss Nightingale’s arrival the number
of shirts which the authorities had succeeded in washing
was seven. The hospital bedding, she found, was
“ washed ’* in cold water. She took a Turkish house,
had bailers installed, and employed soldiers’ wives to do
the laundry work. The expenses were defrayed from her
own funds and that of the Times ; and henceforwaid the
sick and wounded had the comfort of clean linen.

Then she turned her attention to their clothing. Owing
to military exigencies the greater number of the men
Imd abandoned their kit; their knapsacks were lost for
ever; they possessed nothing but what wfjS on their
persons, and that was usually only fit for sp^^' destruc-
tion. The “ Purveyor,” of course, pointilmiit that,
according to the regulations, all soldiers should bring
with them into hospital an adequate supply of clothing,
and he declared that it was no business of his to make
good their deficiencies. Apparently, it was the business
of Miss Nightingale. She procured socks, boots, and
shirts in enormous quantities ; she had trousers made,
she rigged up dressing-gowns. “The fact is,” she told

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE 185

Sidney Herbert, “ I am now clothing the British
Army.”

All at once, word came from the Crimea that a great
new contingent of sick and wounded might shortly be
expected. Where were- they to go ? Every ava^ble
inch in the wards was occupied j the affair was serious
and pressing, and the authorities stood aghast. There
were some dilapidated rooms in the Barrack Hospital,
unfit for human habitation, but Miss Nightingale believed
that if measures were promptly taken they might be made
capable of accommodating several hundred beds. One of
the doctors agreed with her ; the rest of the officials were
irresolute : it would be a very expensive job, they said ;
it would involve building ; and who could take the re-
sponsibility ? The proper course was that a representation
should be made to the Director-General of the Army
Medical Department in London ; then the Director-
General would apply to the Horse Guards, the Horse
Guards would move the Ordnance, the Ordnance would
lay the matter before the Treasury, and, if the Treasmy
gave its consent, the work might be correctly carried
through, several months after the necessity for it had dis-
appeared. Miss Nightingale, however, had made up her
mind, and she persuaded Lord Stratford — or thought she
had persuaded him — ^to give his sanction to the required
expenditure. A hundred and twenty-five workmen were
immediately engaged, and the work was begun. The
workme^^ck; whereupon Lord Stratford washed his
hands J^^Hhwhole business. Miss Nightingale engaged
two hv^^Hpbther workmen on her own authority, and
paid the^Bn out of her own resources. The wards were
ready by the required date ; five hundred sick men were
received in them ; and all the utensils, including knives,
forks, spoons, cans and towels, were supplied by Miss
Nightingale.

This reniiarkable woman was in truth performing the
function of an administrative chief. How had this come

136

EMINENT VICTORIANS

about ? Was she not in reality merely a nurse ? Was
it not her duty simply to tend to the sick ? And indeed,
was it not as a ministering angel, a gentle “ lady with a
lamp ” that she actually impressed the minds of her con-
temporaries ? No doubt that was so ; and yet it is no
less certain that, as she herself said, the specific business
of nursing was “ the least important of the functions
into which she had been forced.” It was clear that in
the state of disorganisation into which the hospitals at
Scutari had fallen the most pressing, the really vital,
need was for something more than nursing ; it was for
the necessary elements of civilised life — ^the commonest
material objects, the most ordinary cleanliness, the
rudimentary habits of order and authority. “ Oh, dear
Miss Nightingale,” said one of her party as they were
approaching Constantinople, ” when we land, let there be
no delays, let us get straight to nursing the poor fellows 1 ”
” The strongest will J>e wanted at the wash-tub,” was
Miss Nightingale’s answer. And it was upon the wash-
tub, and all that the wash-tub stood for, that she expended
her greatest energies. Yet to say that is perhaps to s-ay
too much. For to those who watched her at work among
the sick, moving day and night from bed to bed, with
that unflinching courage, with that indefatigable vigilance,
it seemed as if the concentrated force of an undivided and
unparalleled devotion could hardly suffice for that portion
of her task alone. Wherever, in those vast wards, suffer-
ing was at its worst and the need (for help jm^OTeatest,
there, as if by magic, was Miss Nighti%al||^HLsuper-
human equanimity w'ould, at the moment o|^^^Bhastly
operation, nerve the victim to endure and amH^^ hope.
Her sympathy would assuage the pangs of dying and
bring back to those still living something of the forgotten
charm of life. Over and over again her untiring efforts
rescued those whom the surgeons had abandoned as
beyond the possibility of cure. Her mere presence brought
with it a strange influence. A passionate idolatry spread

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE

187

among the men : they kissed her shadow as it passed.
They did more. “ Before she came,” said a soldier,
” there was cussin’ and swearin’, but after that it was
as ’oly as a church.” The most cherished privilege of
the fighting man was abandoned for the sake of Miss
Nightingale. In those “ lowest sinks of human misery,”
as she herself put it, she never heard the use of one expres-
sion “ which could distress a gentlewoman.”

She was heroic ; and these were the humble tributes
paid by those of grosser mould to that high quality.
Certainly, she was heroic. Yet her heroism was not of
that simple sort so dear to the readers of novels and the
compilers of hagiologies — the romantic sentimental heroism
with which mankind loves to invest its chosen darlings ;
it was made of sterner stuff. To the wounded soldier on
his couch of agony she might well appear in the guise
of a gracious angel of mercy ; but the military surgeons,
and the orderlies, and her own nurses, and the “ Purveyor,”
and Dr. Hall, and even Lord Stratford himself could tell
a different story. It was not by gentle sweetness and
womanly self-abnegation that she had brought order out
of chaos in the Scutari Hospitals, that, from her own
resources, she had clothed the British Army, that she had
spread her dominion over the serried and reluctant powers
of the official world ; it was by strict method, by stern
discipline, by rigid attention to detail, by ceaseless labour,
by the fixed determination of an indomitable will. Beneath
her co(^ad caln^d|||||ieanour lurked fierce and passionate
fires. through the wards in her plain

dress, so unassuming, she struck the casual

observePHI^ly as the pattern of a perfect lady ; but
the keener eye perceived something more than that — the
serenity of high deliberation in the scope of the capacious
brow, the sign of power in the dominating curve of the
thin nose, and the traces of a harsh and dangerous temper
— something peevish, something mocking, and yet some-
thing precise — ^in the small and delicate mouth. There

188

EMINENT VICTORIANS

was humour in the face ; but the curious watcher might
wonder whether it was hiimour of a very pleasant kind ;
might ask himself, even as he heard the laughter and
marked the jokes with which she cheered the spirits of
her patients, what sort of sardonic merriment this same
lady might not give vent to, in the privacy of her chamber
As for her voice, it was true of it, even more than of her
countenance, that it “ had that in it one must fain call
master.” Those clear tones were in no need of emphasis ;
“ I never heard her raise her voice,” said one of her com-
panions. Only, when she had spoken, it seemed as if
nothing could follow but obedience. Once, when she had
given some direction, a doctor ventured to remark that
the thing could not be done. “ But it must be done,”
said Miss Nightingale. A chance bystander, who heard
the words, never forgot tlirough all his life the irresistible
authority of them. And they were spoken quietly — very
quietly indeed.

Late at night, when the long miles of beds lay wrapped
in darkness. Miss Nightingale would sit at work in her
little room, over her correspondence. It was one of the
most formidable of all her duties. There were hundreds
of letters to be written to the friends and relations of
soldiers ; there was the enormous mass of official docu-
ments to be dealt with ; there were her own private letters
to be answered ; and, most important of all, there was
the composition of her long and C||p|fidential reports to
Sidney Herbert. These were by com-

munications. Her soul, pent up all iaPPin|^^^Ktraint
and reserve of a vast responsibility, now J^^^Boured
itself out in these letters with all its naturs^^R^ence,
like a swollen torrent through an open sluice. Here, at
least, she did not mince matters. Here she painted in her
darkest colours the hideous scenes which surrounded her ;
here she tore away remorselessly the last veils still shroud-
ing the abominable truth, ^en she would fill pages
with recommendations and suggestions, with criticisms

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE

IdO

of the minutest details of organisation, with elaborate
calculations of contingencies, with exhaustive analyses
and statistical statements piled up in breathless eagerness
one on the top of the other. And then her pen, in the
virulence of its volubility, w'ould rush on to the discussion
of individuals, to the denunciation of an incompetent
surgeon or the ridicule of a self-suflBcient nurse. Her
sarcasm searched the ranks of the officials with the deadly
and unsparing preeision of a machine-gun. Her nick-
names were terrible. She respected no one : Lord Strat-
ford, Lord Raglan, Lady Stratford, Dr. Andrew Smith,
Dr. Hall, the Commissjiry-Gcneral, the Purveyor — she
fulminated against them all. The intolerable futility of
naankind obsessed her like a nightmare, and she gnashed
her teeth against it. “ I do W'ell to be angrj',” was the
burden of her cry. How many just men were there at
Scutari ? How many who cared at all for the sick, or
had done anything for their relief ? Were there ten ?
Were there ^l^'e ? Was there even one ? She could not
be sure.

At one time, during several weeks, her vituperations
descended upon the head of Sidney Herbert himself,
lie had misinterpreted her wishes, he had traversed her
positive instructions, and it was not until he liad admitted
his error and apologised in abject terms that he was
allowed again into favour. While this misunderstanding
was at its height an aristocratic young gentleman arrived
at Scutaiyvith a recommendation from the Minister. He
had cci|||fl from England filled with a romantic desire
to renomy^mage to the angelic heroine of his dreams.
He had. He said, cast aside his life of ease and luxury ;
he would devote his days and nights to the service of that
gentle lady; he would perform the most menial offices,
he would “ fag ” for her, he would be her footman — and
feel requited by a single smile. A single smile, indeed,
he had, but it was of an imexpected kind. Miss Nightingale
at first refused to see him, and then, when she consented,

140

EMINENT VICTORIANS

believing that he was an emissary sent by Sidney Herbert
to put her in the wrong over their dispute, she took notes
of her eonversation with him, and insisted on his signing
them at the end of it. The young gentleman returned
to England by the next ship.

This quarrel with Sidney Herbert was, however, an
exceptional incident. Alike by him, and by Lord Panmure,
his successor at the War Oflice, she was firmly supported ;
and the fact that during the whole of her stay at Scutari
she had the Home Government at her back, was her trump
card in her dealings with the hospital authorities. Nor
was it only the Government that was behind her : public
opinion in England early recognised the high importance
of her mission, and its enthusiastic appreciation of h(*r
work soon reached an extraordinary height. The Queen
herself was deeply moved. She made repeated inquiries
as to the welfare of Miss Nightingale ; she asked to see
her accounts of the wounded, and made her the inter-
mediary between the throne and the troops. “ Let Mrs.
Herbert know,” she wrote to the War Minister, “ that I
wish Miss Nightingale and the ladies would tell these poor
noble, wounded, and sick men that no one takes a warmer
interest or feels more for their sufferings or admires their
courage and heroism more than their Queen. Day and
night she thinks of her beloved troops. So does the
Prince. Beg Mrs. Herbert to communicate these my
words to those ladies, as I know that our sympathy is
much valued by these noble fellows.” The letter was
read aloud in the wards by the Chaplain. “ a very
feeling letter,” said the men.

And so the months passed, and that fell wifiW which
had begun with Inkerman and had dragged itself out
through the long agony of the investment of Sebastopol,
at last was over. In May, 1855, after six months of labour,
Miss Nightingale could look with something like satis-
faction at the condition of the Scutari hospitals. Had
they done nothing more than survive the terrible strain

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE 141

which had been put upon them, it would have been a
matter for congratulation ; but they had done much more
than tifiit ; they had marvellously improved. The con-
fusion and the pressure in the wards had come to an end ;
order reigned in them, and cleanliness ; the supplies were
bountiful and prompt ; important sanitary works had
been carried out. One simple comparison of figures was
enough to reveal the extraordinary change : the rate of
mortality among the cases treated had fallen from 42 per
cent, to 22 per thousand. But still the indefatigable
lady was not satisfied. The main problem had been
solved — ^the physical needs of the men had been provided
for; their mental and spiritual needs remained. She
set up and furnished reading-rooms and recreation-rooms.
She started classes and lectures. Officers were amazed
to see her treating their men as if they were human beings,
and assured her that she would only end by “ spoiling
the brutes.” But that was not Miss Nightingale’s opinion,
and she was justified. The private soldier began to
drink less, and even — though that seemed impossible —
to save his pay. Miss Nightingale became a banker for
the army, receiving and sending home large sums of money
every month. At last, reluctantly, the Government
followed suit, and established machinery of its own for
the remission of money. Lord Panmure, however, re-
mained sceptical ; “ it will do no good,” he pronounced ;
“ the British soldier is not a remitting animal.” But, in
fact, during the next six months, £71,000 was sent home.

Amid all these activities. Miss Nightingale took up
the further task of inspecting the hospitals in the Crimea
itself. The labour was extreme, and the conditions of
life were almost intolerable. She spent whole days in
the saddle, or was driven over those bleak and rocky
heights in a baggage cart. Sometimes she stood for hours
in the heavily falling snow, and would only reach her hut
at dead of ijight after walking for miles through perilous
ravines. Her powers of resistance seemed incredible, but

142

EMINENT VICTORIANS

at last they were exhausted. She was attacked by fever,
and for a moment came very near to death. Yet she
worked on ; if she could not move, she could at least
write ; and write she did until her mind had left her ;
and after it had left her, in what seemed the delirious
trance of death itself, she still wrote. When, after many
weeks, she was strong enough to travel, she was implored
to return to England, but she utterly refused. She would
not go back, she said, before the last of the soldiers had
left Scutari.

This happy moment had almost arrived, when suddenly
the smouldering hostilities of the medical authorities burst
out into a flame. Dr. Hall’s labours had been rewarded
by a K.C.B. — ^letters which, as Miss Nightingale told
Sidney Herbert, she could only suppose to mean “ Knight
of the Crimean Burial-grounds” — ^and the honour had
turned his head. He was Sir John, and he would be
thwarted no longer. Disputes had lately arisen between
Miss Nightingale and some of the nurses in the Crimean
hospitals. The situation had been embittered by nimours
of religious dissensions, for, while the Crimean nurses
were Roman Catholics, many of those at Scutari were
suspected of a regrettable propensity towards the tenets
of Dr. Pusey. Miss Nightingale was by no means dis-
turbed by these sectarian differences, but any suggestion
that her supreme authority over all the nurses with the
Army was in doubt was enough to rouse her to fury ; and
it appeared that Mrs. Bridgeman, the Reverend Mother
in the Crimea, had ventured to call that authority in
question. Sir John Hall thought that his opportunity
had come, and strongly supported Mrs. Bridgeman — or,
as Miss Nightingale preferred to call her, the “ Reverend
Brickbat.” There was a violent struggle; Miss Night-
ingale’s rage was terrible. Dr. Tiall, she declared, was
doing his best to “ root her out of the Crimea.” She
would bear it no longer ; the War Office was playing her
false; there was only one thing to be done— Sidney

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE 148

Herbert must move for the production of papers in the
House of Commons, so that the public might be able to
judge between her and her enemies. Sidney Herbert with
great difficulty calmed her down. Orders were imme-
diately despatched putting her supremacy beyond doubt,
and the Reverend Brickbat withdrew from the scene. Sir
John, however, was more tenacious. A few weeks later,
Miss Nightingale and her nurses visited the Crimea for
the last time, and the brilliant idea occurred to him that
he could crush her by a very simple expedient — he would
starve her into submission ; and he actually ordered that
no rations of any kind should be supplied to her. He
had already tried this plan with great effect upon an
unfortunate medical man whose presence in the Crimea
he had considered an intrusion ; but he was now to
learn that such tricks were thrown away upon Miss
Nightingale. With extraordinary foresight, she had
brought with her a great supply of food ; she succeeded
in obtaining more at her own expense and by her own
exertions ; and thus for ten days, in that inhospitable
country, she was able to feed herself and twenty-four
nurses. Eventually the military authorities interv’^ened
in her favour, and Sir John had to confess that he was
beaten.

It was not until July, 1856 — four months after the
Declaration of Peace — that Miss Nightingale left Scutari
for England. Her reputation was now enormous, and
the enthusiasm of the public was unbounded. The royal
approbation was expressed by the gift of a brooch, accom-
panied by a private letter. “ You are, I know, well
aware,” wrote Her Majesty, “ of the high sense I enter-
tain of the Christian devotion which you have displayed
during this great and bloody war, and I need hardly
repeat to you how warm my admiration is for your service,
which are fully equal to those of my. dear and brave
soldiers, whose sufferings you have had the privilege of
alleviating in so merciful a manner. I am, however.

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EMINENT VICTORIANS

anxious of marking my feelings in a manner which I trust
will be agreeable to you, and therefore send you with
this letter a brooch, the form and emblems of which
commemorate your great and blessed work, and which
I hope you will wear as a mark of the high approbation
of your Sovereign 1 ”

“It will be a very great satisfaction to me,” Her
Majesty added, “ to make the acquaintance of one who
has set so bright an example to our sex.”

The brooch, which was designed by the Prince Consort,
bore a St. George’s cross in red enamel, and the Royal
cypher surmounted by diamonds. The whole was encircled
by the inscription Blessed are the Merciful.”

Ill

The name of Florence Nightingale lives in the memory
of the world by virtue of the lurid and heroic adventure
of the Crimea. Had she died — as she nearly did — ^upon
her return to England, her reputation would hardly have
been different ; her legend would have come down to us
almost as we know it to-day — ^that gentle vision of female
virtue which first took shape before the adoring eyes of
the sick soldiers at Scutari. Yet, as a matter of fact,
she lived for more than half a century after the Crimean
War ; and during the greater part of that long period
all the energy and all the devotion of her extraordinary
nature were working at their highest pitch. What she
accomplished in those years of unknown labour could,
indeed, hardly have been more glorious than her Crimean
triumphs ; but it was certainly more important. The
true history was far stranger even than the myth. In
Miss Nightingale’s own ej'cs the adventure of the Crimea
was a mere incident — scarcely more than a useful stepping-
stone in her career. It was the fulcrum with which she
hoped to move the world ; but it was only the fulcrum.
For more than a generation she was to sit in secret,
working her lever : and her real life began at the very
moment when, in the popular imagination, it had ended.

She arrived in England in a shattered state of health.
The hardships and the ceaseless effort of the last two
years had undermined her nervous system; her heart
was pronoimced to be affected ; she suffered constantly
from &.inting-fit8 and terrible attacks of utter physical
prostration. The doctors declared that one thing alone
libuld save her — a complete and prolonged rest. But

14S t

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EMINENT VICTORIANS

that was also the one thing with which she would have
nothing to do. She had never been in the habit of resting ;
why should she begin now ? Now, when her opportunity
had come at last ; now, when the iron was hot, and it
was time to strike ? No ; she had work to do ; and,
come what might, she would do it. The doctors protested
in vain ; in vain her family lamented and entreated, in
vain her friends pointed out to her the madness of such
a course. Madness ? Mad — ^possessed — ^perhaps she was.
A demoniac frenzy had seized upon her. As she lay upon
her sofa, gasping, she devoured blue-books, dictated letters,
and, in the intervals of her palpitations, cracked her
febrile jokes. For months at a stretch she never left her
bed. For years she was in daily expectation of Death.
But she would not rest. At this rate, the doctors assured
her, even if she did not die, she would become an invalid
for life. She could not help that; there was the work
to be done ; and, as for rest, very likely she might rest . . .
when she had done it.

Wherever she went, in London or in the country, in
the hills of Derbyshire, or among the rhododendrons at
Embley, she was haunted by a ghost. It was the spectre
of Scutari — ^the hideous vision of the organisation of a
military hospital. She would lay that phantom, or she
would perish. The whole system of the Army Medical
Department, the education of the Medical Officer, the
regulations of hospital procedure . . . rest? How could
she rest while these things were as they were, while, if
the like necessity were to arise again, the like results
would follow ? And, even in peace and at home, what
was the sanitary condition of the Army ? The mortality
in the barracks was, she found, nearly double the mortality
in civil life. “ You might as well take 1100 men every
year out upon Salisbury Plain and shoot them,” she «ud.
After inspecting the hospitals at Chatham, s^e smiled
grimly. “ Yes, this is one more symptom of the system
which, in the Crimea, put to death 16,000 max.” Scut6li

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE 147

had given her knowledge; and it had given her power
too : her enormous reputation was at her back — an
incalculable force. Other work, other duties, might lie
before her ; but the most urgent, the most obvious, of
all was to look to the health of the Army.

One of her very first steps was to take advantage oi
the invitation which Queen Victoria had sent her to the
Crimea, together with the commemorative brooch. Within
a few weeks of her return, she visited Balmoral, and had
several interviews both with the Queen and the Prince
Consort. “ She put before us,” wrote the Prince in his
diary, “ all the defects of our present military hospital
system, and the reforms that are needed.” She related
“ the whole story ” of her experiences in the East ; and,
in addition, she managed to have some long and con-
fidential talks with His Royal Highness on metaphysics
and religion. The impression which she created was
excellent. “ Sie gefallt uns sehr,” noted the Prince,
“ ist sehr bescheiden.” Her Majesty’s comment was
different — “ Such a head ! I wish we had her at the
War Office.”

But Miss Nightingale was not at the War Office, and
for a very simple reason : she was a woman. Lord
Panmure, however, was (though indeed the reason for
that was not quite so simple) ; and it was upon Lord
Panmure that the issue of Miss Nightingale’s efforts for
reform must primarily depend. That burly Scottish noble-
mai ^pa d not, in spite of his most earnest endeavours,
had a very easy time of it as Secretary of State for War.
He had come into office in the middle of the Sebastopol
campaign, and had felt himself very well fitted for the
position, since he had acquired in former days an inside
knowledge of the Army — ^as a Captain of Hussars. It
was this inside knowledge which had enabled him to inform
Miss Nightingale with such authority that “the British
soldier is not a remitting animal.” And perhaps it was
this same consciousness of a command of his subject which

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EMINENT VICTORIANS

had impelled him to write a dispatch to Lord Raglan,
blandly informing the Commander-in-Chief in the Field
just how he was neglecting his duties, and pointing out to
him that if he would only try he really might do a little
better next time. Lord Raglan’s reply, calculated as it
was to make its recipient sink into the earth, did not
quite have that effect upon Lord Panmure, who, whatever
might have been his faults, had never been accused of
being supersensitive. However, he allowed the matter
to drop ; and a little later Lord Raglan died — ^wom out,
some people said, by work and anxiety. He was suc-
ceeded by an excellent red-nosed old gentleman, General
Simpson, whom nobody has ever heard of, and who took
Sebastopol. But Lord Panmure’s relations with him
were hardly more satisfactory than his relations with
Lord Raglan ; for, while Lord Raglan had been too inde-
pendent, poor General Simpson erred in the opposite
direction, perpetually asked advice, suffered from lumbago,
doubted, his nose growing daily redder and redder,
whether he was fit for his post, and, by alternate mails,
sent in and withdrew his resignation. Then, too, both
the General and the Minister suffered acutely from that
distressingly useful new invention, the electric telegraph.
On one occasion General Simpson felt obliged actually
to expostulate. “ I think, my Lord,” he wrote, “ that
some telegraphic messages reach us that cannot be sent
under due authority, and are perhaps unknown to you,
although under the protection of your Lordship’ ai||||fp ne.
For instance, I was called up last night, a dragoon ^^^ing
come express with a telegraphic message in these words,
‘ Lord Panmure to General Simpson — Captain Jarvis has
been bitten by a centipede. How is he now ? ’ ” General
Simpson might have put up with this, though to be sure
it did seem “ rather too trifling an affair to call for a
dragoon to ride a couple of miles in the dark that he
may knock up the Commander of the Army out of the
very small allowance of sleep permitted him ” ; but what

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE 149

was really more than he could bear was to fiud« “ upon
sending in the morning another mounted dragoon to
inquire after Captain Jarvis, four miles off, that he never
has been bitten at all, but has had a boU, from which
he is fast recovering.” But Lord Panmure had troubles
of his own. His favourite nephew. Captain Dowbiggin,
was at the front, and to one of his telegrams to the Com-
raander-in-Chief the Minister had taken occasion to append
the following carefully qualified sentence — “ I recommend
Dowbiggin to your notice, should you have a vacancy,
and if he is fit.” Unfortunately, in those early days,
it was left to the discretion of the telegraphist to compress
the messages which passed through his hands ; so that
the result was that Lord Panmure’s delicate appeal
reached its destination in the laconic form of “ Look after
Dowb.” The Headquarters Staff were at first extremely
puzzled ; they were at last extremely amused. The
story spread ; and “ Look after Dowb ” remained for
many years the familiar formula for describing official
hints in favour of deserving nephews.

And now that all this was over, now that Sebastopol
had been, somehow or another, taken, now that peace was,
somehow or another, made, now that the troubles of office
might surely be expected to be at an end at last — ^here
was Miss Nightingale breaking in upon the scene, with
her talk about the state of the hospitals and the necessity
for sanitary reform. It was most irksome ; and Lord
PaniiMTe almost began to wish that he was engaged upon
soi^i^ore congenial occupation — discussing, perhaps, the
constitution of the Free Church of Scotland — ^a question
in which he was profoundly interested. But no ; duty was
paramount ; and he set himself, with a sigh of resignation,
to the task of doing as little of it as he possibly could.

“ The Bison ” his friends called him ; and the name
fitted both his physical demeanour and his habit of mind.
That large low head seemed to have been created for
butting rather than fpr anything else. There he stood,

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EMINENT VICTORIANS

four-squ^^ and menacing, in the doorway of reform;
and it remained to be seen whether the bulky mass, upon
whose solid hide even the barbed arrows of Lord Raglan’s
scorn had made no mark, would prove amenable to the
pressure of Miss Nightingale. Nor was he alone in the
doorway. There loomed behind him the whole phalanx
of professional conservatism, the stubborn supporters
of the out-of-date, the worshippers and the victims of
War Office routine. Among these it was only natural
that Dr. Andrew Smith, the head of the Army Medical
Department, should have been pre-eminent — ^Dr. Andrew
Smith, who had assured Miss Nightingale before she left
England that “ nothing was wanted at Scutari.” Such
were her opponents ; but she too was not without allies.
She had gained the ear of Royalty — which was something ;
at any moment that she pleased she could gain the ear
of the public — ^which was a great deal. She had a host
of admirers and friends ; and — ^to say nothing of her
personal qualities — her knowledge, her tenacity, her
tact — she possessed, too, one advantage which then, far
more even than now, carried an immense weight — she
belonged to the highest circle of society. She moved
naturally among Peers and Cabinet Ministers — ^she was one
of their own set ; and in those days their set was a very
narrow one. What kind of attention would such persons
have paid to some middle-class woman with whom they
were not acquainted, who possessed great experience of
army nursing and had decided views upon hospital ?

They would have politely ignored her; but it wJ^pli-
possible to igpore Flo Nightingale. When she spoke,
they were obliged to listen ; and, when they had once
begun to do that — ^what might not follow ? She knew
her power, and she used it. She supported her weightiest
minutes with familiar witty little notes. The Bison began
to look grave. It might be difficult — ^it might be damned
difficult — ^to put down one’s head against the white hand
of a lady.

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE 151

Of Miss Nightingale’s friends, .the most ' important
was Sidney Herbert. He was a man upon whom the good
fairies seemed to have showered, as he lay in his cradle,
all their most enviable gifts. Well bom, handsome, rich
the master of Wilton — one of those great country-houses,
clothed with the glamour of a historic past, which are the
peculiar glory of England — he possessed, besides all these
advantages, so charming, so lively, so gentle a disposition
that no one who had once come near him could ever be
his enemy. He was, in fact, a man of whom it was
difficult not to say that he was a perfect English gentleman
For his virtues were equal even to his good fortune. He
was religious — deeply religious : “ I am more and more
convinced every day,” he wrote, when he had been for
some years a Cabinet Minister, “ that in politics, as in
everything else, nothing can be right which is not in
accordance with the spirit of the Gospel.” No one was
more unselfish; he was charitable and benevolent to a
remarkable degree ; and he devoted the whole of his life
with an unwavering conscientiousness to the public service.
With such a character, with such opportunities, what high
hopes must have danced before him, what radiant visions
of accomplished duties, of ever-increasing usefulness, of
beneficent power, of the consciousness of disinterested
success I Some of those hopes and visions were, indeed,
realised; but, in the end, the career of Sidney Herbert
seemed to show that, with all their generosity, there was
some gift or other — ^what was it ? — some essential gift— -
whicb the good fairies had withheld, and that even the
qualities of a perfect English gentleman may be no safe-
guard against anguish, humiliation, and defeat.

That career would certainly have been very different
if he had never known Miss Nightingale. The alliance
between them, which had begun 'mth her appointment to
Scutari,- which had grown closer and closer while the war
lasted, developed, after her return, into one of the most
ejctraordinary of friendships. It was the friendship of a

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EMINENT VICTORIANS

man and a woman intimately bound together by their
devotion to a public cause ; mutual affection, of course,
played a part in it, but it was an incidental part ; the
whole soul of the relationship was a community of work.
Perhaps out of England such an intimacy could hardly
have existed — ^an intimacy so utterly untinctured not
only by passion itself but by the suspicion of it. For
years Sidney Herbert saw Miss Nightingale almost daily,
for long hours together, corresponding with her incessantly
when they were apart ; and the tongue of scandal was
silent ; and one of the most devoted of her admirers was
his wife. But what made the connection still more
remarkable was the way in which the parts that were
played in it were divided between the two. The man
who acts, decides, and achieves ; the woman who en-
courages, applauds, and — ^from a distance — inspires : —
the combination is common enough ; but Miss Nightingale
was neither an Aspasia nor an Egeria. In her case it is
almost true to say that the rdles were reversed ; the
qualities of pliancy and sympathy fell to the man, those
of command and initiative to the woman. There was one
thing only which Miss Nightingale lacked in her equipment
for public life ; she had not — she never could have — ^the
public power and authority which belong to the successful
politician. That power and authority Sidney Herbert
possessed ; the fact was obvious, and the conclusion no
less so : it was through the man that the woman must
work her will. She took hold of him, taught him, shaped
him, absorbed him, dominated him through and through.
He did not resist — he did not wish to resist ; his natural
inclination lay along the same path as hers ; only that
terrific personalty swept him forward at her own fierce
pace and with her own relentless stride. Swept him —
where to ? Ah 1 Why had he ever known Miss Night-
ingale ? If Lord Panmure was a bison, Sidney Herbert,
no doubt, was a stag — a comely, gallant creature springing
through the forest.; but the forest is a dangerous place.

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE 158

One has the image of those wide eyes fascinated suddenly
by something feline, something strong ; there is a pause ;
and then the tigress has her claws in the quivering haunches ;
and then !

Besides Sidney Herbert, she liad other friends who,
in a more restricted sphere, were hardly less essential to
her. If, in her condition of bodily collapse, she were to
accomplish what she was determined that she should
accomplish, the attentions and the services of others
would be absolutely indispensable. Helpers and servers
she must have ; and accordingly there was soon formed
about her a little group of devoted disciples upon whose
affections and energies she could implicitly rely. Devoted,
indeed, these disciples were, in no ordinary sense of the
term ; for certainly she was no light task-mistress, and
he who set out to be of use to Miss Nightingale was apt
to find, before he had gone very far, that he was in truth
being made use of in good earnest — to the very limit of
his endurance and his capacity. Perhaps, even beyond
those limits ; why not ? Was she asking of others more
than she was giving herself ? Let them look at her lying
there pale and breathless on the couch ; could it be said
that she spared herself? Why, then, should she spare
others ? And it was not for her own sake that she made
these claims. For her own sake, indeed ! No ! They
all knew it ! it was for the sake of the work. And so
the little band, bound body and soul in that strange
servitude, laboured on ungrudgingly. Among the most
faithful was lier “ Aunt Mai,” her father’s sister, who from
the earliest days had stood beside her, who had helped
her to escape from the thraldom of family life, who had
been with her at Scutari, and who now acted almost the
part of a mother to her, watching over her with infinite
care in all the movements and uncertainties which her
state of health involved. Another constant attendant
was her brother-in-law. Sir Harry Vemey, whom she
found particularly valuable in parliamentary a&iis.

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EMINENT VICTORIANS

Arthur Clough, the poet, also a connection by marriage,
she used in other ways. Ever since he had lost his faith
at the time of the Oxford Movement, Clough had passed
his life in a condition of considerable uneasiness, which
was inci'eased rather than diminished by the practice of
poetry. Unable to decide upon the purpose of an existence
whose savour had fled together with his belief in the
Resurrection, his spirits lowered still further by ill-health,
and his income not all that it should be, he had deter-
mined to seek the solution of his difficulties in the United
States of America. But, even there, the solution was
not forthcoming ; and when, a little later, he was offered
a post in a government department at home, he accepted
it, came to live in London, and immediately fell under
the influence of Miss Nightingale. Though the purpose
of existence might be still uncertain and its nature still
unsavoury, here, at any rate, under the eye of this inspired
woman, was something real, something earnest : his only
doubt was — could he be of any use ? Certainly he could.
There were a great number of miscellaneous little jobs
which there was nobody handy to do. For instance,
when Miss Nightingale was travelling, there were the
railway-tickets to be taken ; and there were proof-sheets
to be corrected ; and then there were parcels to be done
up in brown paper, and carried to the post. Certainly
he could be useful. And so, upon such occupations as
these, Arthur Clough was set to work. “ This that I sec,
is not all,” he comforted himself by reflecting, “ and this
that I do is but little ; nevertheless it is good, though
there is better than it.”

As time went on, her “ Cabinet,” as she called it,
grew larger. Officials with whom her work brought her
into touch and who sympathised with her objects, were
pressed into her service ; and old friends of the Crimean
days gathered round her when they returned to England.
Among these the most indefatigable was Dr. Sutherland,
a sanitary expat, who for more than thirty years acted

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE 163

as her confidential private secretary, and surrendered to
her purposes literally the whole of his life. Thus sustained
and assisted, thus slaved for and adored, she prepared to
beard the Bison.

Two facts soon emerged, and all that followed turned
upon them. It became clear, in the first place, that that
imposing mass was not immovable, and, in the second,
that its movement, when it did move, would be exceeding
slow. The Bison was no matc‘h for the Lady. It was in
vain that he put down his head and planted his feet in
the earth ; he could not withstand her ; the white hand
forced him back. But the process was an extraordinarily
gradual one. Dr. Andrew Smith and all his War Office
phalanx stood behind, blocking the way ; the poor Bison
groaned inwardly, and cast a wistful eye towards the
happy pastures of the Free Chiu*ch of Scotland ; then
slowly, with infinite reluctance, step by step, he retreated,
disputing every inch of the ground.

The first great measure, which, supported as it was
by the Queen, the Cabinet, and the united opinion of the
coimtry, it was impossible to resist, was the appointment
of a Royal Commission to report upon the health of the
Army. The question of the composition of the Com-
mission then immediately arose ; and it was over this
matter that the first hand-to-hand encounter between
Lord Panmure and Miss Nightingale took place. They
met, and Miss Nightingale was yictorious ; Sidney Herbert
was appointed Chairman ; and, in the end, the only member
of the commission opposed to her views was Dr. Andrew
. Smith. During the interview. Miss Nightingale made an
important discovery : she found that “ the Bison was
bullyable ” — ^the hide was the hide of a Mexican buffalo,
but the spirit was the spirit of an Alderney calf. And
there was one thing above all others which the huge
creature dreaded — an appeal to public opinion. The
faintest hint of such a terrible eventuality made his heart
dissolve within him; he would agree to anything — he

156

EMINENT VICTORIANS

would cut short his grouse-shooting — he would make a
speech in the House of Lords — ^he would even overrule
Dr. Andrew Smith — ^rather than that. Miss Nightingale
held the fearful threat in reserve — she would speak out
what she knew ; she would publish the truth to the whole
world, and let the whole world judge between them.
With supreme skill, she kept this sword of Damocles
poised above the Bison’s head, and more than once she
was actually on the point of really dropping it. For his
recalcitrancy grew and grew. The 'personnel of the Com-
mission once determined upon, there was a struggle, which
lasted for six months, over the nature of its powers. Was
it to be an efficient body, armed with the right of full
inquiry and wide examination, or was it to be a polite
official contrivance for exonerating Dr. Andrew Smith ?
The War Office phalanx closed its ranks, and fought tooth
and nail ; but it was defeated : the Bison was bullyable.
“ Three months from this day,” Miss Nightingale had
written at last, “ I publish my experience of the Crimean
Campaign, and my suggestions for improvement, unless
there has been a fair and tangible pledge by that time for
reform.” Who could face that ?

And, if the need came, she meant to be as good as
her word. For she had now determined, whatever might
be the fate of the Commission, to draw up her own report
upon the questions at issue. The labour involved was
enormous ; her health was almost desperate ; but she
did not flinch, and after six months of incredible industry
she had put together and written with her own hand her
” Notes affecting the Health, Efficiency, and Hospital
Administration of the British Army.” This extraordinary
composition, filling more than eight hundred closely printed
pages, laying down vast principles of far-reaching reform,
discussing the minutest details of a multitude of contro-
versial subjects, containing an enormous mass of infor-
mation of the most varied kinds — ^military, statistical,
sanitary, architectural — ^was never given to the public.

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE

13T

for the need never came ; but it formed the basis of the
Report of the Royal Commission ; and it remains to
this day the leading authority on the medical administra*
tion of armies.

Before it had been completed the struggle over the
powers of the Commission had been brought to a victorious
close. Lord Panmure had given way once more ; he had
immediately hurried to the Queen to obtain her consent ;
and only then, when her Majesty’s initials had been irre-
vocably affixed to the fatal document, did he dare to tell
Dr. Andrew Smith what he had done. The Commission
met, and another immense load fell upon Miss Nightingale’s
shoulders. To-day she would, of course, have been one
of the Commission herself ; but at that time the idea of
a woman appearing in such a capacity was unheard of ;
and no one even suggested the possibility of Miss Night-
ingale’s doing so. The result was that she was obliged
to remain behind the scenes throughout, to coach Sidney
Herbert in private at every important juncture, and to
convey to him and to her other friends upon the Com-
mission the vast funds of her expert knowledge — ^so
essential in the examination of witnesses — by means of
innumerable consultations, letters, and memoranda. It
was even doubtful whether the proprieties would admit
of her giving evidence ; and at last, as a compromise, her
modesty only allowed her to do so in the form of written
answers to written questions. At length the grand affair
was finished. The Commission’s Report, embodying
almost word for word the suggestions of Miss Nightingale,
was drawn up by Sidney Herbert. Only one question
remained to be answered — ^would anything, after all, be
done ? Or would the Royal Commission, like so many
other Royal Commissions before and since, turn out to
have achieved nothing but the concoction of a very fat
blue-book on a very high shelf ?

And so the last and the deadliest struggle with the
Bison b^an. Six months had been spent in coercing biin

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EMINENT VICTORIANS

into granting the Conunission effective powers ; six more
months were occupied by the work of the Commission ;
and now yet another six were to pass in extorting from
him the means whereby the recommendations of the
Commission might be actually carried out. But, in the
end, the thing was done. Miss Nightingale seemed indeed,
during these months, to be \ipon the very brink of death.
Accompanied by the faithful Aunt Mai, she moved from
place to place — to Hampstead, to Highgate, to Derbyshire,
to Malvern — in what appeared to be a last desperate
effort to find health somewhere ; but she carried that
with her which made health impossible. Her desire for
work could now scarcely be distinguished from mania.
At one moment she was writing a “ last letter ” to Sidney
Herbert ; at the next she was offering to go out to India
to nurse the sufferers in the Mutiny. When Dr. Suther-
land wrote, imploring her to take a holiday, she raved.
Rest 1 — “ I am lying without my head, without my
claws, and you all peck at me. It is de rigueur, d’obligation,
like the saying something to one’s liat, when one goes
into church, to say to me all that has been said to me
110 times a day during the last three montlis. It is the
obbligato on the violin, and the twelve violins all practise
it together, like the clocks striking 12 o’clock at night
all over London, till I say like Xavier de Maistre, Assez,
je le sais, je ne le sais que trap. I am not a penitent ;
but you are like the R.C. confessor, who says what is
de^rigueur. . . .” Her wits began to turn, and there
was no holding her. She worked like a slave in a mine.
She began to believe, as she had begun to believe at
Scutari, that none of her fellow-workers had their hearts
in the business ; if they had, why did they not work as
she did ? She could only see slackness and stupidity
around her. Dr. Sutherland, of course, was grotesquely
muddle-headed ; and Arthur Clough incurably la^.
Even Sidney Herbert ... oh yes, he had simplicity and
candour and quickness of perception, no doubt; but

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE 159

he was an eclectic ; and what could one hope for from a
man who went away to fish in Ireland just when the
Bison most needed bullying ? As for the Bison himself
he had fled to Scotland, where he remained buried for
many months. The fate of the vital recommendation
in the Commission’s Report — the appointment of four
Sub-Commissions charged with the duty of determining
upon the details of the proposed reforms and of putting
them into execution — still hung in the balance. The
Bison consented to everything ; and then, on a flying
visit to London, withdrew his consent and hastily returned
to Scotland. Then for many weeks all business was
suspended ; he had gout — ^gout in the hands, so that he
could not write. “ His gout was always handy,” remarked
Miss Nightingale. But eventually it was clear even to
the Bison that the game was up, and the inevitable surrender
came.

There was, however, one point in which he triumphed
over Miss Nightingale. The building of Netley Hospital
had been begun, under his orders, before her return to
England. Soon after her arrival she examined the plans,
and found that ihey reproduced all the worst faults of
an out-of-date and mischievous system of hospital con-
struction. She therefore urged that the matter should
be reconsidered, and in the meantime the building .stopped.
But the Bison was obdurate ; it would be very expensive,
and in any case it was too late. Unable to make any
impression on him, and convinced of the extreme im-
portance of the question, she determined to appeal to a
higher authority. Lord Palmerston was Prime Minister ;
she had known him from her childhood ; he was a near
neighbour of her father’s in the New Forest. She went
down to the New Forest, armed with the plans of the
proposed hospital and all the relevant information, stayed
the night at Lord Palmerston’s house, and convinced him
of the necessity of rebuilding Netley. “ It seems to me,”
Lord Palmerston wrote to Lord Panmure, ” that at Netley

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EMINENT VICTORIANS

all consideration of what would best tend to the comfort
and recovery of the patients has been sacrificed to the
vanity of the architect, whose sole object has been to
make a building which should cut a dash when looked at
from the Southampton river. . . . Pray, therefore, stop
all further progress in the work until the matter can be
duly considered.” But the Bison was not to be moved
by one peremptory letter, even if it was from the Prime
Minister. He put forth all his powers of procrastination,
Ijord Palmerston lost interest in the subject, and so the
chief military hospital in England was triumphantly
completed on unsanitarj'- principles, with unventilated
rooms, and with all the patients’ windows facing north-
east.

But now the time had come when the Bison w'as to
trouble and to be troubled no more. A vote in the House
of Commons brought about the fall of Lord Palmerston’s
Government, and Lord Panmure found himself at liberty
to devote the rest of his life to the Free Church of Scotland.
After a brief interval, Sidney Herbert became Secretary
of State for War. ' Great was the jubilation in the Night-
ingale Cabinet : the day of achievement had dawned
at last. The next two and a half years (1859-61) saw the
introduction of the whole system of reforms for which
Miss Nightingale had been struggling so fiercely — reforms
which make Sidney Herbert’s tenure of power at the
War Office an important epoch in the history of the
British Army. The foiur Sub-Commissions, firmly estab-
lished under the immediate control of the Minister, and
urged forward by the relentless perseverance of Miss
Nightingale, set to work with a will. The barracks and
the hospitals were remodelled ; they wei'e properly venti-
lated and warmed and lighted for the first time ; they
were given a water supply which actually supplied water,
and kitchens where, strange to say, it was possible to
cook. Then the great question of the Purveyor — ^that
portentous functionary whose powers and whose lack of

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE 161

powers had weighed like a nightmare upon Scutari— was
taken in hand, and new regulations were laid down,
accurately defining his responsibilities and his duties.
One Sub-Commission reorganised the medical statistics of
the Army. Another established — in spite of the last
convulsive efforts of the Department — ^an Army Medical
School, Finally the Army Medical Department itself was
completely reorganised ; an administrative code was
drawn up ; and the great and novel principle was estab-
lished that it was as much a part of the duty of the
authorities to look after the soldier’s health as to look
after his sickness. Besides this, it was at last officially
admitted that he had a moral and intellectual side. Coffee-
rooms and reading-rooms, gymnasiums and workshops
were instituted. A new era did in truth appear to have
begun. Already by 1861 the mortality in the Army had
decreased by one half since the days of the Crimea. It
was no wonder that even vaster possibilities began now
to open out before Miss Nightingale. One thing w^as
still needed to complete and to assure her triumphs. The
Army Medical Department was indeed reorganised ; but
the great central machine was still untouched. The War
Office itself — ! — If she could remould that nearer to her
lieart’s desire — ^thcre indeed would be a victory 1 And
until that final act was accomplished, how could she be
certain that all the rest of her achievements might not,
by some capricious turn of Fortune’s wheel — a change
of Ministry, perhaps, replacing Sidney Herbert by some
puppet of the permanent official gang — be swept to limbo
in a moment ?

Meanwhile, still ravenous for more and yet more work,
her activities had branched out into new directions. The
army in India claimed her attention. A Sanitary Com-
mission, appointed at her suggestion, and working under
her auspices, did for our troops there what the four Sub-
Commissions were doing for those at home. At the same
time, these very years which saw her laying the foundations

M

102 EMINENT VICTORIANS

of the whole modern system of medical work in the
army, saw her also beginning to bring her knowledge, her
influence, and her activity into the service of the coimtry
at large. Her Notes on Hospitals (1859) revolutionised
the theory of hospital construction and hospital manage-
ment. She was inunediately recognised as the leading
expert upon all the questions involved ; her advice flowed
unceasingly and in all directions, so that there is no great
hospital to-day which does not bear upon it the impress
of her mind. Nor was this all. With the opening of the
Nightingale Training School for Nurses at St. Thomas’s
Hospital (1860), she became the founder of modem
nursing.

But a terrible crisis was now fast approaching. Sidney
Herbert had consented to undertake the root and branch
reform of the War Office. He had sallied forth into tliat
tropical jungle of festooned obstructiveness, of inter-
twisted irresponsibilities, of crouching prejudices, of
abuses grown stiff and rigid with antiquity, which for
so many years to come was destined to lure reforming
ministers to their doom. “ The War Office,” said Miss
Nightingale, “ is a very slow office, an enormously expensive
office, and one in which the Minister’s intentions can be
entirely negatived by all his sub-departments, and those
of each of the sub-departments by every other.” It was
true ; and, of course, at the first rumour of a change, the
old phalanx of reaction was bristling with its accustomed
spears. At its head stood no longer Dr. Andrew Smith,
who, some time since, had followed the Bison into outer
darkness, but a yet more formidable figure, the permanent
Under Secretary himself, Sir Benjamin Hawes — ^Ben
Hawes the Nightingale cabinet irreverently dubbed him —
a man remarkable even among civil servants for adroit-
ness in baffling inconvenient inquiries, resource in raising
false issues, and, in short, a consummate command of all
the arts of officially sticking in the mud. “ Our scheme
will probably result in Ben Hawes’s resignation,” Miss

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE

IC3

Nightingale said ; “ and that is another of its advantages.”
Ben Ha'vres himself, however, did not quite see it in that
light. He set himself to resist the wishes of the Minister
by every means in his power. The struggle was long and
desperate ; and, as it proceeded, it gradually became
evident to Miss Nightingale that something was the
matter with Sidney Herbert. What w^as it ? His health,
never very strong, w&s, he said, in danger of collapsing
under the strain of his work. But, after all, what is illness,
when there is a War Office to be rcoi^aniscd ? Then he
began to talk of retiring altogether from public life.
The doctors were consulted, and declared that, above all
things, what was necessary was rest. Rest ! She grew
seriously alarmed. Was it possible that, at the last
moment, the crowning wreath of victory w'as to be
snatched from her grasp ? She was not to be put aside
by doctors ; they were talking nonsense ; the necessary
thing was not rest but the reform of the War Office ; and,
besides, she knew very well from her own case what one
could do even when one was on the point of death. She
expostulated vehemently, passionately : the goal was so
near, so very near ; he could not turn back now I At
any rate, he could not resist Miss Nightingale. A com-
promise was arranged. Very reluctantly, he exchanged
the turmoil of the House of Commons for the dignity of
the House of Lords, and he remained at the War Office.
She was delighted. “ One fight more, the best and the
last,” she said.

For several more months the fight did indeed go on.
But the strain upon him was greater even than she per-
haps could realise. Besides the intestine war in his
office, he had to face a constant battle in the Cabinet
with Mr. Gladstone — a more redoubtable antagonist even
than Ben Hawes — over the estimates. His health grew
worse and worse. He was attacked by fainting-fits ; and
there were some days when he could only just keep himself
going by gulps of brandy. Miss Nightingale spurred him

161

EMINENT VICTORIANS

forward with her encouragements and her admonitions,
her zeal and her example. But at last his spirit began to
sink as well as his body. He could no longer hope ; he
could no longer desire ; it was useless, all useless ; it
was utterly impossible. He had failed. The dreadful
moment came when the truth was forced upon him : he
would never be able to reform the War Office. But a yet
more dreadful moment lay behind ; he must go to Miss
Nightingale and tell her that he was a faUure, a beaten
man.

Blessed arc the merciful 1 What strange ironic
prescience had leil Prince Albert, in the simplicity of
his heart, to choose that motto for the Crimean brooch ?
The words hold a double lesson ; and, alas ! when she
brought herself to realise at length wliat was indeed the
fact and what there was no helping, it was not in mercy
that she turned upon her old friend. “ Beaten ! ” she
exclaimed. “ Can’t you see that you’ve simply throwm
away the game ? And with all the winning cards in
your hands ! And so noble a game ! Sidney Herbert
beaten ! And beaten by Ben Hawes 1 It is a w'orse

disgrace ” her full rage burst out at last, “ . . . a

worse disgrace tlian the hospitals at Scutari.”

He dragged himself away from her, dragged himself to
Spa, hoping vainly for a return of health, and then,
despairing, back again to England, to Wilton, to the
majestic house standing there resplendent in the summer
sunshine, among the great cedars which had lent their
shade to Sir Philip Sidney, and all those familiar, darling
haunts of beauty which he loved, each one of them, “ as
if they were persons ” ; and at Wilton he died. After
having received the Eucharist, he had become perfectly
calm; then, almost unconscious, his lips W'ere seen to
be moving. Those about him bent down. “ Poor
Florence ! Poor Florence ! ” they just caught. “ . . . Our
joint work . . . unfinished . . . tried to do . . . ’! and
they could hear no more.

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE 165

■When the onward rush of a powerful spirit sweeps a
weaker one to its destruetion, the eonunonplaces of the
moral judgment are better left unmade. If Miss Night-
ingale had been less ruthless, Sidney Herbert would not
have perished ; but then, she would not have been Miss
Nightingale. The force that created was the force that
destroyed. It was her Demon that was responsible.
When the fatal news reached her, she was overcome by
agony. In the revulsion of her feelings, she made a
worship of the dead man’s memory ; and the facile instni-
ment which had broken in her hand she spoke of for ever
after as her “ Master.” Then, almost at the same moment,
another blow fell upon her. Arthur Clough, worn out by
labours very different from those of Sidney Herbert, died
too : never more would he tie up her parcels. And yet
a third disaster followed. The faithful Aunt Mai
did not, to be sure, die ; no, she did something almost
worse : she left Miss Nightingale. She was growing old,
and she felt that she had closer and more imperative
duties with her own family. Her niece could hardly
forgive her. She poured out, in one of her enormous
letters, a passionate diatribe upon the faithlessness, the
lack of sympathy, the stupidity, the ineptitude of women.
Her doctrines had taken no hold among them ; she
had never known one who had appris d apprendre ; she
could not even get a woman secretary ; “ they don’t know
the names of the Cabinet Ministers — ^they don’t know
which of the Churches has Bishops and which not.” As
for the spirit of self-sacrifice, well — Sidney Herbert and
Arthur Clough were men, and they indeed had shown their
devotion ; but women — I She would mount three widow’s
caps “ for a sign.” The first two would be for Clough and
for her Master ; but the third, “ the biggest widow’s cap
of all ” — ^would be for Atint Mai. She did well to be
angry ; she was deserted in her hour of need ; and, after
all, could she be sure that even the male sex was so im-
peccable ? There was Dr. Sutherland, bupgling as usuaL

166

EMINENT VICTORIANS

Perhaps even he intended to go off, one of these days,
too ? She gave him a look, and he shivered in his shoes.
No ! — she grinned sardonically ; she would always have
Dr. Sutherland. And then she reflected that there was
one thing more that she would always have— her
work.

IV

Sidney Heebeet’s death finally put an end to Mii»s
Nightingale’s dream of a reformed War Oificc. For a
moment, indeed, in the first agony of her disappointment,
she had wildly clutehcd at a straw ; she had written to
Mr. Gladstone to beg him to take up the burden of Sidney
Herbert’s work. And Mr. Gladstone had replied with a
sympathetic aceount of the funeral.

Sueceeding Seeretaries of State managed between
them to undo a good deal of what had been aeeomplished,
but they could not undo it all ; and for ten years more
(1862-72) Miss Nightingale remained a potent influence
at the War Office. After that, her direct connection
with the army came to an end, and her energies began to
turn more and more completely towards more general
objects. Her work upon hospital reform assumed enormous
proportions ; she was able to improve the conditions in
infirmaries and workhouses ; and one of her most remark-
able papere forestalls the recommendations of the Poor
Law Commission of 1909. Her training school for nurses,
with all that it involved in initiative, control, responsibility,
and combat, would have been enough in itself to have
absorbed the whole efforts of at least two lives of ordinary
vigour. And at the same time her work in connection
with India, which had begun with the Sanitary Commission
on the Indian Army, spread and ramified in a multitude
of directions. Her tentecles reached the India Office and
succeeded in establishing a hold even upon those slippery
high places. For many years it was de rigueur for the newly
appointed Viceroy, before he left England, to pay a visit
to Miss Nightingale.

168 EMINENT VICTORIANS

After much hesitation, she had settled down in a small
house in South Street, where she remained for the rest
of her life. That life was a very long one ; the dying woman
reached her ninety-first year. Her ill-health gradually
diminished ; the crises of extreme danger l^ame less
frequent, and at last altogether ceased ; she remained
an invalid, but an invalid of a curious character — ^an invalid
who was too weak to walk downstairs and who worked far
harder than most Cabinet Ministers. Her illness, what-
ever it may liavc been, was certainly not inconvenient.
It involved seclusion ; and an extraordinary, an un-
paralleled seclusion was, it might almost have been said,
the mainspring of Miss Nightingale’s life. Lying on her
sofa in the little upper room in South Street, she combined
the intense vitality of a dominating woman of the world
with the mysterious and romantic quality of a myth.
She was a legend in her lifetime, and she knew it. She
tasted the joys of power, like those Eastern Emperors
whose autocratic rule was based upon invisibility, with
the mingled satisfactions of obscurity and fame. And
.she found the machinery of illness hardly less effective as
a barrier against the eyes of men than the ceremonial of
a palace. Great statesmen and renowned generals were
obliged to beg for audiences ; admiring princesses from
foreign countries found that they must see her at her own
lime, or not at all ; and the ordinary mortal had no hope
of ever getting beyond the downstairs sitting-room and
Dr. Sutherland. For that indefatigable disciple did,
indeed, never desert her. He niight be impatient, he might
be restless, but he remained. His “ incurable looseness
of thought,” for so she termed it, continued at her service
to the end. Once, it is true, he had actually ventured to
take a holiday ; but he was recalled, and he did not repeat
the experiment. He was wanted downstairs. There he
sat, transacting business, answering correspondence, inter-
viewing callers, and exchanging innumerable notes with
the unseen power above. Sometimes word came down that

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE 169

Miss Nightingale was just well enough to see one of her
visitors. The fortunate man was led up, was ushered,
trembling, into the shaded chamber, and, of course, could
never afterwards forget the interview. Very rarely,
indeed, ony or twice a year, perhaps, but nobody could
be quite certain, in deadly secrecy. Miss Nightingale went
out for a drive in the Park. Unrecognised, the living
legend flitted for a moment before the common gaze.
And the precaution was necessary ; for there were times
when, at some public function, the rumour of her presence
was spread abroad ; and ladies, mistaken by the crowd
for Miss Nightingale, were followed, pressed upon, and
vehemently supplicated — “ Let me touch your shawl,” —
“ Let me stroke your arm ” ; such was the strange adora-
tion in the hearts of the people. That vast reserve of force
lay there behind her ; she could use it, if she would. But
she preferred never to use it. On occasions, she might
hint or tlireatcn ; she might balance the sword of Damocles
over the head of the Bison ; she might, by a word, by a
glance, remind some refractory minister, some unpersuad-
able viceroy, sitting in audience with her in the little upper
room, that she was something more than a mere sick
woman, that she had only, so to speak, to go to the window
and wave her handkerchief, for . . . dreadful things to
follow. But that was enough ; they understood ; the
myth was there — obvious, portentous, impalpable ; and
so it remained to the last.

With statesmen and governors at her beck and call,
with her hands on a hundred strings, with mighty provinces
at her feet, with foreign governments agog for her counsel,
building hospitals, training nurses — she still felt that she
had not enough to do. She sighed for more worlds to
conquer — more, and yet more. She looked about her —
what was there left ? Of course 1 Philosophy 1 After
the world of action, the world of thought. Having set
right the health of the British Army, she would now do
the same good service for the religious convictions of

170

EMINENT VICTORIANS

mankind. She had long noticed — ^with regret — the grow-
ing tendency towards free-thinking among artisans. With
regret, but not altogether with surprise : the current teach-
ing of Christianity was sadly to seek ; nay, Christianity
itself was not without its defects. She rectify

these errors. She would correct the mistakes of the
Churches ; she would point out just where Christianity
was wrong ; and she would explain to the artisans what
the facts of the case really were. Before her departure
for the Crimea, she had begun this work ; and now, in the
intervals of her other labours, she completed it. Her
“ Suggestions for Thought to the Searchers after Truth
among the Artisans of England ” (1860), unravels, in the
course of three portly volumes, the difficulties — hitherto,
curiously enough, unsolved — connected with such matters
ns Behef in God, the Plan of Creation, the Origin of Evil,
the Future Life, Necessity and Free Will, Law, and the
Nature of Morality. The Origin of Evil, in particular,
held no perplexities for Miss Nightingale. “ We cannot
conceive,” she remarks, “ that Omnipotent Righteousness
would find satisfaction in solitary existence." This being
so, the only question remaining to be asked is, “ What
beings should we then conceive that God would create ? ”
Now, He cannot create perfect beings, “ since, essentially,
perfection is one ” ; if He did so. He would only be adding
to Himself. Thus the conclusion is obvious : He must
create imperfect ones. Omnipotent Righteousness, faced
by the intolerable impasse of a solitary existence, finds
itself bound, by the very nature of the case, to create the
hospitals at Scutari, Whether this argument would have
satisfied the artisans, was never discovered, for only a very
few copies of the book were printed for private circulation.
One copy was sent to Mr. Mill, who acknowledged it in an
extremely polite letter. He felt himself obliged, however,
to confess that he had not been altogether convinced by
Miss Nightingale’s proof of the existence of (^d. Miss
Nightingale was surprised and mortified ; she had thought

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE 171

better of Mr. Mill ; for surely her proof of the existence
of God could hardly be improved upon. “ A law,” she had
pointed out, “ implies a lawgiver.” Now the Universe is
full of laws —the law of gravitation, the law of the excluded
middle, aiwk many others ; hence it follows that the
Universe has a lawgiver — ^and what would Mr. Mill be
satisfied with, if he was not satisfied with that ?

Perhaps Mr. Mill might have asked why the argument
had not been pushed to its logical conclusion. Clearly, if
wc are to trust the analogy of human institutions, we
must remember that laws are, as a matter of fact, not
dispensed by lawgivers, but passed by Act of Parliament.
Miss Nightingale, however, with all her experience of public
life, never stopped to consider the question whether God
might not be a Limited Monarchy,

Yet her conception of God was certainly not orthodox.
She felt towards Him as she might have felt towards a
glorified sanitary engineer ; and in some of her speculations
she seems hardly to distinguish between the Deity and the
Drains. As one turns over these singular pages, one has
the impression that Miss Nightingale has got the Almighty
too into her clutches, and that, if He is not careful, she will
kill Him with overwork.

Then, suddenly, in the very midst of the ramifying
generalities of her metaphysical disquisitions there is an
unexpected turn, and the reader is plunged all at once
into something particular, something personal, something
impregnated with intense experience — ^a virulent invective
upon the position of women in the upper ranks of society.
Forgetful alike of her high argument and of the artisans,
the bitter creature rafls through a hundred pages of close
print at the falsities of family life, the ineptitudes of
marriage, Jdie emptinesses of convention, in the spirit of
an Ibsen or a Samuel Butler. Her fierce pen, shaking
with intimate anger, depicts in biting sentences the fearful
fate of an unmarried girl in a wealthy household. It is
A eri 4u eceur ; and then, as suddenly, she returns once

172

EMINENT VICTORIANS

more to instruct the artisans upon the nature of Omni-
potent Righteousness.

Her mind was, indeed, better qualified to dissect the
concrete and distasteful fruits of actual life than to
construct a coherent system of abstract philosophy. In
spite of her respect for Law, she was never at home with
a generalisation. Thus, though the great achievement of
her life lay in the immense impetus which she gave to the
scientific treatment of sickness, a true comprehension of
the scientific method itself was alien to her spirit. Like
most great men of action — perhaps like all — she was
simjjly an empiricist. She believed in what she saw,
and she acted accordingly ; beyond that she would not
go. She had found in Scutari that fresh air and light
played an effective part in the prevention of the maladies
with which she had to deal ; and that was enough for her ;
she would not inquire further ; what were the general
principles underlying that fact — or even whether there
were any — she refused to consider. Years after the
discoveries of I’asteur and Lister, she laughed at what
she called the “ germ-fetish.” There was no such thing
as ” infection ” ; she had never seen it, therefore it did not
exist. But she had seen the good effects of fresh air ;
therefore there could be no doubt about them; and
therefore it was essential that the bedrooms of patients
should be well ventilated. Such was her doctrine ; and
in those days of hermetically sealed windows it was a
very valuable pne. But it was a purely empirical doctrine,
and thus it led to some unfortunate results. When, for
instance, her influence in India was at its height, she issued
orders that all hospital windows should be invariably kept
open. The authorities, who knew what an open window
in the hot weather meant, protested, but in vain ; Miss
Nightingale was incredulous. She knew nothing of the
hot weather, but she did know the value of fresh air — ^from
persona] experience ; the authorities were talking nonsense ;
and the windows must be kept open all the year round.

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE

178

There was a great outcry from all the doctors in India,
but she was firm ; and for a moment it seemed possible
that her terrible commands would have to be put into
execution. Lord Lawrence, however, was Viceroy, and
he was able to intimate to Miss Nightingale, with sufficient
authority, that he himself had decided upon the ques-
tion, and that his decision must stand, even against her
own. Upon that, she gave way, but reluctantly and
quite unconvinced ; she was only puzzled by the un-
expected weakness of Lord Lawrence. No doubt, if she
had lived to-day, and if her experience had lain, not among
cholera cases at Scutari, but among yellow-fever cases in
Panama, she would have declared fresh air a fetish, and
would have maintained to her dying day that the only really
effective way of dealing with disease was by the destruction
of mosquitoes.

Yet her mind, so positive, so realistic, so idtra-practical,
had its singular revulsions, its mysterious moods of m}'^s-
ticism and of doubt. At times, lying sleepless in the early
hours, she fell into long strange agonised meditations,
and then, seizing a pencil, she would commit to paper the
confessions of her soul. The morbid longings of her pre-
Crimean days came over her once more ; she filled page
after page with self-examination, self-criticism, self-
surrender. “ O Father,” she wrote, “ I submit, I resign
myself, I accept with all my heart this stretching out of
Thy hand to save me. . . . O how vain it is, the vanity
of vanities, to live in men’s thoughts instead of God’s 1 ”
She was lonely, she was miserable. “ Thou knowest that
through all these horrible twenty years, 1 have been
supported by the belief that I was working with Thee who
wert bringing every one, even our poor nurses, to per-
fection,” — and yet, after all, what was the result ? Had
not even she been an unprofitable servant ? One night,
waking suddenly, she saw, in the dim light of the night-
lamp, tenebrous shapes upon the wall. The past rushed
back upon her. “ Am I she who once stood on that

174

EMINENT VICTORIANS

Crimean height ? ” she wildly asked — “ ‘ The Lady wirii
a lamp shall stand. . . The lamp shows me only my
utter shipwreck.”

She sought consolation in the writings of the Mystics
and in a correspondence with Mr. Jowett. For many
years the Master of Balliol acted as her spiritual adviser,
lie discussed with her in a series of enormous letters the
problems of religion and philosophy ; he criticised her
writings on those subjects w'ith the tactful sympathy of
a cleric who was also a man of the world ; and he even
ventured to attempt at times to instil into her rebellious
nature some of Jiis own peculiar suavity. “ I sometimes
think,” he told her, “ that you ought seriously to consider
how your work may be carried on, not with less energy, but
in a calmer spirit. I am not blaming the past. . . . But
I want the peace of God to settle on the future.” lie
recommended her to spend her time no longer in “ conflicts
with Government offices,” and to take up some literary
work. He urged her to “ work out her notion of Divine
Perfection,” in a series of essays for Frazer^s Magazine.
She did so ; and the result was submitted to Mr. Froude,
who pronounced the second essay to be “ even more preg-
nant than the first. I cannot tell,” he said,“ how sanitary,
with disordered intellects, the effects of such papers will
be.” Mr. Carlyle, indeed, u'sed different language, and
some remarks of his about a lost lamb bleating on the
mountains having been unfortunately repeated to Miss
Nightingale, all Mr. Jow'ctt’s suavity was required to keep
the peace. In a letter of fourteen sheets, he turned her
attention from this painful topic towards a discussion of
Quietism. “ I don’t see why,” said the Master of Balliol,
“active life might not become a sort of passive life too.”
And then, he added, “ I sometimes fancy there are possi-
bilities of hiunan character much greater than have been
realised.” She found such sentiments helpful, underlining
them in blue pencil ; and, in return, she assisted her
friend with a long series of elaborate comments upon the

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE 176

Dialogues of Plato, most of which he embodied in the second
edition of his translation. Gradually her interest became
more personal ; she told him never to work again after
midnight, and he obeyed her. Then she helped him to
draw up a speeial form of daily service for the College
Chapel, with selections from the Psalms under the heads
of “ God the Lord, God the Judge, God the Father, and
God the Friend,” — though, indeed, this project was never
realised ; for the Bishop of Oxford disallowed the altera-
tions, exercising his legal powers, on the advice of Sir
Travers Twiss.

Their relations became intimate. “ The spirit of the
twenty-third psalm and the spirit of the nineteenth psalm
should be united in our lives,” Mr. Jowett said. Eventu-
ally, she asked him to do her a singular favour. Would
he, knowing what he did of her religious views, come to
London and administer to her the Holy Sacrament ? He
did not hesitate, and afterwards deelared that he would
always regard the occasion as a solemn event in his life.
He was devoted to her ; though the precise nature of his
feelings towards her never quite transpired. Her feelings
towards him were more mixed. At first, he was “ that
great and good man,” — ” that true saint, Mr. Jowett ” ; but.
as time went on, some gall was mingled with the balm ;
the acrimony of her nature asserted itself. She felt that
she gave more sympathy than she received ; she was
exhausted, she was annoyed, by his conversation. Her
tongue, one day, could not refrain from shooting out at him.
” He comes to me, and he talks to me,” she said, ” as if
I were some one else.”

V

At one time she had almost decided to end her life in
retirement, as a patient at St. Thomas’s Hospital. But
partly owing to the persuasions of Mr. Jowett, she changed
her mind ; for forty-five years she remained in South
Street ; and in South Street she died. As old age ap-
proached, though her influence with the ofilcial world
gradually diminished, her activities seemed to remain as
intense and widespread as before. When hospitals were
to be built, when schemes of sanitary reform were in
agitation, when wars broke out, she was still the adviser
of all Europe. Still, with a characteristic self-assurance,
she watched from her Mayfair bedroom over the welfare
of India. Still, with an indefatigable enthusiasm, she
pushed forward the work, which, perhaps, was nearer to
her heart, more completely her own, than all the rest —
the training of nurses. In her moments of deepest de-
pression, when her greatest achievements seemed to lose
their lustre, she thought of her nurses, and was comforted.
The ways of God, she found, were strange indeed. “ How
inefficient I was in the Crimea,” she noted. “ Yet He has
raised up from it trained nursing.”

At other times she was better satisfied. Looking
back, she was amazed by the enormous change which,
since her early days, had come over the whole treatment
of illness, the whole conception of public and domestic
health — a change in which, she knew, she had played her
part. One of her Indian admirers, the Aga Khan, came to
visit her. She expatiated on the marvellous advances
she had lived to see in the management of hospitals, in
drainage, in ventilation, in sanitary work of every kind .

176

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE 177

There was a pause ; and then, “ Do you think you are
improving ? ’’ asked the Aga Khan, She was a little
taken aback, and said, What do you mean by ‘ im-
proving ’ ? ” He replied, Believing more in God.” She
saw that he had a view of God which was different from
hers. ‘‘ A most interesting man,” she noted after the
interview ; “ but you could never teach him sanitation.”

When old age actually came, something curious hap-
pened. Destiny, having waited very patiently, played a
queer trick on Miss Nightingale. The benevolence and
public spirit of that long life had only been equalled by
its acerbity. Her virtue had dwelt in hardness, and she
had poured forth her unstinted usefulness with a bitter
smile upon her lips. And now the sarcastic years brought
the proud woman her punishment. She was not to die
as she had lived. The sting was to be taken out of her :
she was to be made soft ; she was to be reduced to com-
pliance and complacency. The change came gradually,
but at last it 'was unmistakable. Th^ terrible commander
who had driven Sidney Herbert to his death, to whom
Mr. Jowett had applied the words of Homer, afiorov fxifiavia
— ^raging insatiably — now accepted small compliments
with gratitude, and indulged in sentimental friendships
with young girls. The author of “ Notes on Nursing ” --
that classical compendium of the besetting sins of the
sisterhood, drawn up with the detailed acrimony, the
vindictive .relish, of a Swift — now spent long hours in
composing sympathetic Addresses to Probationers, whom
she petted and wept over in turn. And, at the same time,
there appeared a corresponding alteration in her physical
mould. The thin, angular woman, with her haughty eye
and her acrid mouth had vanished ; and in her place was
the rounded bulky form of a fat old lady, smiling all day
long. Then something else became visible. The brain
which had been steeled at Scutari was indeed, literally,
growing soft. Senility — an ever more and more amiable
senility — descended. Towards the end, consciousness itself

N

178

EMINENT VICTORIANS

grew lost in a roseate haze, and melted into nothingness.
It was just then, three years before her death, when she
was eighty-seven years old (1907), that those in authority
bethought them that the opportune moment had come
for bestowing a public honour on Florence Nightingale.
She was offered the Order of Merit. That Order, whose
roll contains, among other distinguished names, those of
Sir Laurence Alma Tadema and Sir Edward Elgar, is
remarkable chiefly for the fact that, as its title indicates,
it is bestowed because its recipient deserves it, and for
no other reason. Miss Nightingale’s representatives ac-
cepted the honour, and her name, after a lapse of many
years, once more appeared in the Pi^ess. Congratulations
from all sides came pouring in. There was a universal
bufst of enthusiasm — ^a final revivification of the ancient
myth. Among her other admirers, the German Emperor
took this opportunity of expressing his feelings towards
her. “ His Majesty,” wrote the German Ambassador,
“ having just brought to a close a most enjoyable stay in
the beautiful neighbourhood of your old home near Romsey,
has commanded me to present you with some flowers as
a token of his esteem.” Then, by Royal command, the
Order of Merit was brought to South Street, and there
was a little ceremony of presentation. Sir Douglas
Dawson, after a short speech, stepped forward, and
handed the insignia of the Order to Miss Nightingale.
Propped up by pillows, she dimly recognised that some
compliment was being paid her. ” Too kind — too kind,”
she murmured ; and she was not ironical.

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE

179

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Sir E. Cook, Hfe of Florence Nightingale,

A. W. Kmglake. The Invaeton of the Crimea,

Lord Sidney Godolphin Osborne. Scutari and its Hospitals,

S. M. Mitra. Life of Sir John Hall,

Lord Stanmore. Sidney Herbert,

Sir G. Douglas. The Panmure Papers,

Sir H. Maxwell. Life and Letters of the Fourth Earl of Clarendon.
E. Abbot and L, Campbell. Life and Letters of Benjamin Jowett.
A. H. Clough. Poems and Memoir.

DR. ARNOLD

DR. ARNOLD

In 1827 the headmastership of Rugby school fell vacant,
and it became necessary for the twelve trustees, noblemen
and gentlemen of Warwickshire, to appoint a successor
to the post. Reform was in the air — apolitical, social,
religious ; there was even a feeling abroad that our great
public schools were not quite all that they should bo,
and that some change or other — ^no one precisely knew
what — ^but some change in the system of their manage-
ment, was highly desirable. Thus it was natural that when
the twelve noblemen and gentlemen, who had deter-
mined to be guided entirely by the merits of the candidates
found among the testimonials pouring in upon them a
letter from Dr. Hawkins, the Provost of Oriel, predicting
that if they elected Mr. Thomas Arnold he would “ change
the face of education all through the public schools of
England,” they hesitated no longer : obviously, Mr.
Thomas Arnold was their man. He was elected there-
fore ; received, as was fitting, priest’s orders ; became,
as was no less fitting, a Doctor of Divinity ; and in
August, 1828, took up the duties of his office.

All that was known of the previous life of Dr. Arnold
seemed to justify the prediction of the Provost of Oriel,
and the choice of the Trustees. The son of a respectable
Collector of Customs, he had been educated at Winchester
and at Oxford, where his industry and piety had given
him a conspicuous place among his fellow-students.
It is true that, as a schoolboy, a certam pompousness in
the style of his letters home suggested to the more

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EMINENT VICTORIANS

clear-sighted among his relatives the possibility that young
Thomas might grow up into a prig ; but, after all, what
else could be expected from a child who, at the age of
three, had been presented by his father, as a rew^ard for
proficiency in his studies, with the twenty-four volumes
of Smollett’s History of England ? His career at
Oxford had been a distinguished one, winding up with
an Oriel fellowship. It was at about this time that the
smooth and satisfactory progress of his life was for a
moment interrupted : he began to be troubled by religious
doubts. These doubts, as we learn from one of his
contemporaries, who afterwards became Mr. Justice
Coleridge, “ were not low nor rationalistic in their tendency,
according to the bad sense of that term ; there was no
indisposition in him to believe merely because the article
transcended his reason ; he doubted the proof and the
interpretation of the textual authority.” In his perturba-
tion, Arnold consulted Keble, who was at that time one
of his closest friends, and a Fellow of the same College.
“ The subject of these distressing thoughts,” Keble wrote
to Coleridge, “ is that most awful one, on which all very
inquisitive reasoning minds are, I believe, most liable
to such temptations — I mean, the doctrine of the blessed
Trinity. Do not start, my dear Coleridge ; I do not
believe that Arnold has any serious scruples of the under-
standing about it, but it is a defect of his mind that he
cannot get rid of a certain feeling of objections.” What
was to be done ? Keble’s advice was peremptory.
Arnold was “ bid to pause in his inquiries, to pray earnestly
for help and light from above, and turn himself more
strongly than ever to the practical duties of a holy life.”
He did so, and the result was all that could be wished.
He soon found himself blessed with perfect peace of
mind, and a settled conviction.

One other difficulty, and one only, we hear of, at
this period of bis life. His dislike of early rising amounted,
we are told, ” almost to a constitutional infirmity ’!

DR. ARNOLD

185

This weakness too he overcame, yet not quite so success-
fully as his doubts u])on the doctrine of the Trinity.
For in after life the Doctor would often declare “ that
early rising continued to be a daily effort to him, and
that in this instance he never found the truth of the usual
rule, that all things are made easy by custom.”

He married young, and settled down in the country
as a private tutor for youths preparing for the Universities.
There he remained for ten years — happy, busy, and
sufficiently prosperous. Occupied chiefly with his pupils,
he nevertheless devoted much of his energy to wider
interests. He delivered a series of sermons in the parish
church ; and he began to write a History of Rome, in
the hope, as he said, that its tone might be such “ that the
strictest of what is called the Evangelical party would
not object to putting it into the hands of their children.”
His views on the religious and political condition of the
countiy^ began to crystallise. He was alarmed by the
” want of Christian principle in the literature of the day,”
looking forward anxiously to “ the approach of a greater
struggle between good and evil than the world has yet
seen ” ; and, after a serious conversation with Dr. Whately,
began to conceive the necessity of considerable altera-
tions in the Church Establishment. All who knew him
during these years were profoundly impressed by the
earnestness of his religious convictions and feelings,
which, as one observer said, “ were ever bursting forth.”
It was impossible to disregard his “ deep consciousness
of the invisible world ” and ” the peculiar feeling of love
and adoration which he entertained towards our Lord
Jesus Christ.” “His manner of awful reverence when
speaking of God or of the Scriptures ” was particularly
striking. “No one could know him even a little,” said
another friend, “ and not be struck by his absolute -wrestling
■with evil, so that like St. Paul he seemed to be battling
with the wicked one, and yet -with a feeling of God’s help
on his side.”

186

EMINENT VICTORIANS

Such was the man who, at the age of thirty-three,
became headmaster of Rugby. His outward appearance
was the index of his inward character : everything about
him denoted energy, earnestness, and the best intentions.
His legs, perhaps, were shorter than they should have
been ; but the sturdy athletic frame, especially when it
was swathed (as it usually was) in the flowing robes of a
Doctor of Divinity, was full of an imposing vigour ; and
his head, set decisively upon the collar, stock, and bands
of ecclesiastical tradition, clearly belonged to a person
of eminence. The thick, dark clusters of his hair, his
bushy eyebrows and curling whiskers, his straight nose
and bulky chin, his firm and upward-curving lower lip
— ^all these revealed a temperament of ardour and deter-
mination. His eyes were bright and large ; they were
also obviously honest. And yet— why was it ? — was
it in the lines of the mouth or the frown on the fore-
head ? — ^it was hard to say, but it was unmistakable —
there was a slightly puzzled look upon the face of Dr.
Arnold.

And certainly, if he was to fulfil the prophecy of the
Provost of Oriel, the task before him was sufficiently
perplexing. The public schools of those days were
still virgin forests, untouched by the hand of reform.
Keate w'as still reigning at Eton; and we possess, in
the records of his pupils, a picture of the public school
education of the early nineteenth century, in its most
characteristic state. It was a system of anarchy
tempered by despotism. Hundreds of boys, herded
together in miscellaneous boarding-houses, or in that
grim “Long Chamber” at whose name in after years
aged statesmen and warriors would turn pale, lived,
badgered and over-awed by the furious incursions of an
irascible little old man carrying a bundle of bircb-twigs,
a life in which licensed barbarism was mingled with the
daily and hourly study of the niceties of Ovidian verse.
It was a life of freedom and terror, of prosody and rebellion,

DR. ARNOLD

187

of interminable floggings and appalling practical jokes.
Keate ruled, unaided — ^for the under-masters were few
and of no account — ^by sheer force of character. But
there were times when even that indomitable will was
overwhelmed by the flood of lawlessness. Every Sunday
afternoon he attempted to read sermons to the whole
school assembled ; and every Sunday afternoon the whole
school assembled shouted him down. The scenes in Chapel
were far from edifying : while some antique Fellow
dodderetl in the pulpit, rats would be let loose to scurry
among the legs of the exploding boys. But next morning
the hand of discipline would re-assert itself ; and the savage
ritual of the whipping-block would remmd a batch of
whimpering children that, though sins against man and
God might be forgiven them, a false quantity could only
be expiated in tears and blood.

From two sides, this system of education was beginning
to be assailed by the awakening public opinion of the
upper middle classes. On the one hand, there was a
desire for a more liberal curriculum ; on the other, there
was a demand for a higher moral tone. The growing
utilitarianism of the age viewed with impatience a
course of instruction which excluded every branch of
knowledge except classical philology ; while its growing
respectability was shocked by such a spectacle of dis-
order and brutality as was afforded by the Eton of Keate.
“ The Public Schools,” said the Rev. Mr Bowdler, ” are
the very seats and nurseries of vice.”

Dr. Arnold agreed. He was convinced of the necessity
for reform. But it was only natural that to one of his
temperament and education it should have been the moral
rather than the intellectual side of the qtiestion which
impressed itself upon his mind. Doubtless it was
important to teach boys something more than the bleak
rigidities of the ancient tongues ; but how much more
important to instil into them the elements of character
and the principles of conduct 1 His great object.

188

EMINENT VICTORIANS

throughout his career at Rugby, was, as he repeatedly said,
to “ make the school a place of really Christian education.”
To introduce “ a religious principle into education,” was
his “ most earnest wish,” he wrote to a friend when he
first became headmaster ; “ but to do this would be to
succeed beyond all my hopes ; it would be a happiness
so great, that, I think, the world would yield me nothing
comparable to it.” And he was constantly impressing
these sentiments upon his pupils. “ What I have often
said before,” he told them, “ I repeat now : what wc must
look for here is, first, religious and moral principle ;
secondly, gentlemanly conduct ; thirdly, intellectual
ability.”

There can be no doubt that Dr. Arnold’s point of view
was shared by the great mass of English parents. They
cared very little for classical scholarship ; no doubt
they would be pleased to find that their sons were being
instructed in history or in French ; but their real hopes,
their real wishes, were of a very different kind. “ Shall
I tell him to mind his work, and say he’s sent to school
to make himself a good scholar ? ” meditated old Squire
Brown when he was sending off Tom for the first time to
Rugby. “ Well, but he isn’t sent to school for that —
at any rate, not for that mainly. I don’t care a straw for
Greek particles, or the digamma ; no more does his mother.
What is he sent to school for ? . If he’ll only turn out

a brave, helpful, truth-telling Englishman, and a Christian,
that’s all I want.”

That was all ; and it was that that Dr. Arnold set
himself to accomplish. But how was he to achieve his
end ? Was he to improve the character of his pupils
by gradualljf^ spreading round them an atmosphere of
cultivation and intelligence ? By bringing them into
close and friendly contact with civilised men, and even,
perhaps, with civilised women ? By introducing into
the life of his school all that he could of the humane,
enlightened, and progressive elements in the life of the

DR. ARNOLD

189

community ? On the whole, he thought not. Sueh
considerations left him cold, and he preferred to be guided
by the general laws of Providence. It only remained
to discover what those general laws were. He consulted
the Old Testament, and could doubt no longer. He would
apply to his scholars, as he himself explained to them in
one of his sermons, “ the principle which seemed to him
to have been adopted in the training of the childhood
of the human race itself.” He would treat the boys
at Rugby as Jehovah had treated the Chosen People ;
he would found a theocracy ; and there should be Judges
in Israel.

For this purpose, the system, prevalent in most of
the public schools of the day, by which the elder boys
were deputed to keep order in the class-rooms, lay ready
to Dr. Arnold’s hand. He found the “ Praepostor ”
a mere disciplinary convenience, and he converted him
into an organ of government. Every boy in the Sixth
Form became ipso facto a Praipostor, with powers extending
over every department of school life ; and the Sixth
Form as a body was erected into an authority responsible
to the headmaster, and to the headmaster alone, for the
internal management of the school.

This was the means by which Dr. Arnold hoped to
turn Rugby into “ a place of really Christian education.”
The boys were to work out their own salvation, like the
human race. He himself, involved in awful grandeur,
ruled remotely, through his chosen instruments, from an
inaccessible heaven. Remotely — and yet with an omni-
present force. As the Israelite of old knew that his
almighty Lawgiver might at any moment thunder to
him from the whirlwind, or appear before ffts very eyes,
the visible embodiment of power or wrath, so the Rugby
schoolboy walked in a holy dread of some sudden mani-
festation of the sweeping gown, the majestic tone, the
piercing glance, of Dr. Arnold. Among the lower forms
of the school his appearances were rare and transitory,

190

EMINENT VICTORIANS

and upon these young children “ the chief impression,”
we are told. “ was of extreme fear.” The older boys saw
more of him, but they did not sec much. Outside the
Sixth Form, no part of the school came into close inter-
course with him ; and it would often happen that a boy
would leave Rugby without having had any personal
communication with him at all. Yet the effect which
he produced upon the great mass of his pupils was remark-
able. The prestige of his presence and the elevation of
his sentiments were things which it was impossible to
forget. In class, every line of his countenance, every
shade of his manner imprinted themselves indelibly on
the minds of the boys who sat under him. One of these,
writing long afterwards, has described, in phrases still
impregnated with awestruck reverence, the familiar
details of the scene : — “ the glance with which he looked
round in the few moments of silence before the lesson
began, and which seemed to speak his sense of his own
position ” — ” the attitude in which he stood, turning over
the pages of Facciolati’s Lexicon, or Pole’s synopsis, with
his eye fixed upon the boy who was pausing to give an
answer ” — “ the pleased look and the cheerful ‘ thank you,’
which followed upon a successful translation ” — “ the
fall of his countenance with its deepening severity, the
stem elevation of the eyebrows, the sudden ‘ sit down ’
which followed upon the reverse ” — and “ the startling
earnestness with which he would check in a moment the
slightest approach to levity.”

To be rebuked, however mildly, by Dr. Arnold was a
notable experience. One boy could never forget how he
drew a distinction between “mere amusement” and
“ such as encroached on the next day’s duties,” nor the
tone of voice with which the Doctor added “and then
it immediately becomes what St. Paul calls revelling.''^
Another remembered to his dying day his reproof of some
boys who had behaved badly during prayers. “ No-
where,” said Dr. Arnold, “ nowhere is Satan’s work more

DR. ARNOLD

191

evidently manifest than in turning holy things to ridicule.”
On such occasions, as another of his pupils described it,
it was impossible to avoid “ a consciousness almost
amounting to solemnity ” that, “ when his eye was upon
you, he looked into your inmost heart.”

With the boys in the Sixth Form, and with them alone,
the severe formality of his demeanour was to some degree
relaxed. It was his wish, in his relations with the Prsc-
postors, to allow the Master to be occasionally merged
in the Friend. From time to time, he chatted with
them in a familiar manner ; once a term he asked them
to dinner ; and during the summer holidays he im ited
them, in rotation, to stay with him in Westmoreland.

It was obvious that the primitive methods of dis-
cipline which had reached their apogee under the dommion
of Keate were altogether incompatible with Dr. Arnold’s
view of the functions of a headmaster and the proper
governance of a public school. Clearly, it was not for
such as he to demean himself by bellowing and cufling,
by losing his temper once an hour, and by wreaking his
vengeance with indiscriminate flagellations. Order must
be kept in other ways. The worst boys were publicly
expelled ; many were silently removed ; and, when Dr.
Arnold considered that a flogging was necessary, he
administered it with gravity. For he had no theoretical
objection to corporal punishment. On the contrary,
he supported it, as was his wont, by an appeal to general
principles. “ There is,” he said, “ an essential inferiority
in a boy as compared with a man ” ; and hence “ where
there is no equality, the exercise of superiority implied
in personal chastisement ” inevitably followed. He
was particularly disgusted by the view that personal
correction,” as he phrased it, was an insult or a degrada-
tion to the boy upon whom it was inflicted ; and to
accustom young boys to think so appeared to him to be
” positively mischievous.” “ At an age,” he wrote,
« when it is almost impossible to find a true, manly sense

192

EMINENT VICTORIANS

of the degradation of guilt or faults, where is the wisdom
of encouraging a fantastic sense of the degradation of
personal correction ? What can be more false, or more
adverse to the simplicity, sobriety, and humbleness of
mind which arc the best ornaments of youth, and offer
the best promise of a noble manhood ? ” One had not
to look far, he added, for “ the fruits of such a system.”
In Paris, during the Revolution of 1830, an officer observed
a boy of twelve insulting the soldiers, and “ though
the action was then raging, merely struck him with the
flat part of his sword, as the fit chastisement for boyish
impertinence. But the boy had been taught to consider
his person sacred, and that a blow was a deadly insult ;
he therefore followed the officer, and having watched
his opportunity, took deliberate aim at him with a pistol
and murdered him.” Such were the alarming results
of insufficient whipping.

Dr. Arnold did not apply this doctrine to the Prae-
postors ; but the boys in the lower parts of the school
felt its benefits with a double force. The Sixth Form
was not only excused from chastisement ; it was given
the right to chastise. The younger children, scourged
both by Dr. Arnold and by the elder children, were given
every opportunity of acquiring the simplicity, sobriety,
and humbleness of mind, which are the best ornaments
of youth.

In the actual sphere of teaching, Dr. Arnold’s reforms
were tentative and few. He introduced modem history,
modem languages, and mathematics into the school
curriculum ; but the results were not encouraging. He
devoted to the teaching of history one hour a week;
yet, though he took care to inculcate in these lessons a
wholesome hatred of moral evil, and to point out from
time to time the indications of the providential govern-
ment of the world, his pupils never seemed to make much
progress in the subject. Could it have been that the
time allotted to it was insufficient ? Dr. Arnold had some

DR. ARNOLD

198

suspicions that this might be the case. With modern
languages there was the same difficulty. Here his hopes
were certainly not excessive. I assume it,” be wrote,
as tlie foundation of all my view of the case, that boys
at a public school never will learn to speak or pronounce
French well, under any circumstances.” It would be
enough if they could “ learn it grammatically as a dead
language.” But even this they very seldom managed
to do. I know too well,” he was obliged to confess,
“ that most of the boys would pass a very poor examination
even in French grammar. But so it is with their mathc-
lusitios ; and so it will be with any branch of knowledge
that is taught but seldom, and is felt to be quite sub-
ordinate to the boys’ main study.”

The boys’ main study remained the dead languages
of Greece and Rome. That the classics should form the
basis of all teaching was an axiom with Dr. Arnold. “ The
study of language,” he said, “ seems to me as if it was
given for the very purpose of forming the human mind in
youth ; and the Greek and Latin languages seem the
very instniments by which this is to be effected.”
Certainly, there was something providential about it —
from the point of view of the teacher as well as of the
taught. If Greek and Latin had not been ‘‘ given ”
in that convenient manner. Dr. Arnold, who had spent his
life in acquiring those languages, might have discovered
that he had acquired them in vain. As it was, he could
set the noses of his pupils to the grindstone of syntax
and prosody with a clear conscience. Latin verses and
Greek prepositions divided between them the labours of
the week. As time went on, he became, he declared,
** increasingly convinced that it is not knowledge, but
the means of gaining knowledge which I have to teach.”
The reading of the school was devoted almost entirely
to selected passages from the prose writers of antiquity.
” Boys,” he remarked, do not like poetry.” Perhaps
his own poetical taste was a little dubious ; at any rate>

o

194

EMINENT VICTORIANS

it is certain that he considered the Greek Tragedians
greatly overrated, and that he ranked Propertius as
“ an indifferent poet.” As for Aristophanes, owing to
his strong moral disapprobation, he could not bring himself
to read him until he was forty, when, it is tnic, he was
much struck by the “ Clouds.” But Juvenal the Doctor
could never bring himself to read at all.

Physical science was not taught at Rugby. Since,
in Dr. Arnold’s opinion, it was “ too great a subject to
be studied iv irapipyif,^’ obviously only two alternatives
were possible : — it must either take the chief place in
the school curriculum, or it must be left out altogether.
Before such a choice. Dr. Arnold did not hesitate for a
moment. “ Rather than have physical science the
principal thing in my son’s mind,” he exclaimed in a letter
to a friend, “ I would gladly have him think that the
sun went round the earth, and that the stars were so
many spangles set in the bright blue firmament. Surely
the one thing needful for a Christian and an English-
man to study is Christian and moral and political
philosophy.”

A Christian and an Englishman ! After all, it was not
in the class-room, nor in the boarding-house, that the
essential elements of instruction could be imparted which
should qualify the youthful neophyte to deserve those
names. The final, the fundamental lesson could only
be taught in the school chapel ; in the school chapel
the centre of Dr. Arnold’s system of education was in-
evitably fixed. There, too, the Doctor himself appeared
in the plenitude of his dignity and his enthusiasm. • There,
with the morning sun shining on the freshly scrubbed
faces of his three hundred pupils, or, in the dusk of evening,
through a glimmer of candles, his stately form, rapt in
devotion or vibrant with exhortation, would doxninate the
scene. Every phase of the Church service seemed to
receive its supreme expression in his voice, his attitude,
his look. During the Te Deum, his whole countenance

DR. ARNOLD

195

would light up ; and he read the Psalms with such
conviction that boys would often declare, after hearing
him, that they understood them now for the first time. It
was his opinion that the ereeds in public w'orship ought to
be used as triumphant hymns of thanksgiving, and, in
accordance with this view, although unfortunately he
possessed no natural gift for music, he regularly joined ui
the chanting of the Nicene Creed with a visible animation
and a peculiar fervour, which it was impossible to forget.
The Communion service he regarded as a direct and special
counterpoise to that false communion and false companion-
ship, which, as he often observed, was a great source ol
mischief in the school ; and he bent himself down with
glistening eyes, and trembling voice, and looks of paternal
solicitude, in the administration of the elements. Nor
was it only the different sections of the liturgy, but the
very divisions of the ecclesiastical year that reflected
themselves in his demeanour ; the most careless observer,
we are told, “ could not fail to be struck by the triumphant
exultation of his whole manner on Easter Sunday ” ;
though it needed a more familiar eye to discern the
subtleties in his bearing which were produced by the
approach of Advent, and the solemn thoughts which it
awakened of the advance of human life, the progress of the
human race, and the condition of the Church of England.

At the end of the evening service the culminating
moment of the week had come : the Doctor delivered his
sermon. It W'as not until then, as all who had known
him agreed, it was not until one had heard and seen him
in the pulpit, that one could fully realise what it was to
be face to face with Dr. Arnold. The whole character
of the man — so we are assured — stood at last revealed.
His congregation sat in fixed attention (with the exception
of the younger boys, whose thoughts occasionally
wandered), while he propounded the general principles
both of his own conduct and that of the Almighty, or
indicated the bearing of the incidents of Jewish history

196

EMINENT VICTORIANS

in the sixth century b.c. upon the conduct of English
schoolboys in 1830. Then, more than ever, his deep
consciousness of the invisible world became evident ;
then, more than ever, he seemed to be battling with the
wicked one. For his sermons ran on the eternal themes
of the darkness of evil, the craft of the tempter, the
l)iinishmcnt of obliquity, and he justified the persistence
with which he dwelt upon these painful subjects by an
appeal to a general principle : “ the spirit of Elijah,”
he said, “ must ever precede the sjiirit of Christ.” The
impression produced ujion the boys was remarkable.
It was noticed that even the most careless would
sometimes, during the course of the week, refer almost
involuntarily to the sermon of the past Sunday, as a con-
demnation of what they were doing. Others were heard
to wonder how it was that the Doctor’s preaching, to which
they had attended at the time so assiduously, seemed,
after all, to have such a small effect upon what they did.
An old gentleman, recalling those vanished hours, tried
to recapture in words his state of mind as he sat in the
darkened chapel, while Dr. Arnold’s sermons, with their
high-toned exhortations, their grave and sombre messages
of incalculable import, clothed, like Dr. Arnold’s body
in its gown and bands, in the traditional stiffness of a
formal phraseology, revetberated through his adolescent
ears. “ I used,” he said, “ to listen to those sermons from
first to last with a kind of awe.”

His success was not limited to his pupils and imme-
diate auditors. The sermons were collected into five large
volumes ; they were the first of their kind ; and they were
received with admiration by a wide circle of pious readers.
Queen Victoria herself possessed a copy, in which several
passages were marked in pencil, by the royal hand.

Dr. Arnold’s energies were by no means exhausted
by his duties at Rugby. He became known, not merely
as a Headmaster, but as a public man. He held decided

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197

opinions upon a large number of topics ; and he enunicated
them — ^based as they were almost invariably upon general
principles — in pamphlets, in prefaces, and in magazine
articles, with an impressive self-confidence. He was,
as he constantly declared, a Liberal. In his opinion, by
the very constitution of human nature, the principles
of progress and reform had been those of wisdom and
justice in every age of the world — exeept one : that which
had preceded the fall of man from Paradise. Had he
lived then. Dr. Arnold would have been a Conservative.
As it was, his liberalism was tempered by an “ abhorrence
of the .spirit of 1789, of the American War, of the French
Economistes, and of the English Whigs of the latter part
of the seventeenth century ” ; and he always enter-
tained a profound respect for the hereditary peerage. It
might almost be said, in fact, that he was an orthodox
Liberal. He believed in toleration, too, within limits ;
that is to say, in the toleration of those with whom he
agreed. “ I would give James Mill as much opportunity
for advocating his opinion,” he said, ” as is consistent
with a voyage to Botany Bay.” He had become con-
vinced of the duty of sympathising with the lower orders
ever since he had made a serious study of the Epistle of
St. James ; but he perceived clear’y that the lower orders
fell into two classes, and that it was necessary to distinguish
between them. There were the “ good poor ” — and there
were the others. ” I am glad that you have made
aequaintanee with some of the good poor,” he wrote to
a Cambridge undergraduate ; “ I quite agree with you
that it is most instructive to visit them.” Dr. Arnold
himself occasionally visited them, in Rugby ; and the
condescension with which he shook hands with old men
and M'omcn of the working classes was long remembered
in tive neighbourhood. As for the others, he regarded
them with horror and alarm. “ The disorders in our
social state,” he wrote to the Chevalier Bunsen in 1884,
“ appear to me to continue unabated. You have heard

198 EMINENT VICTORIANS

I doubt not, of the Trades’ Unions ; a fearful engine of
mischief, ready to riot or to assassinate ; and I see no
counteracting power.”

On the whole, his view of the cond tion of England
was a gloomy one. He recommended a correspondent
to read “ Isaiah iii., v., xxii. ; Jeremiah v., xxii., xxx. ;
Amos iv, ; and Habakkuk ii.,” adding, “ you will be
struck, I think, with the close resemblance of our own
state with that of the Jews before the second destruc-
tion of Jerusalem.” When he was told that the gift of
tongues had descended on the Irvingites at Glasgow,
he was not surprised. “ I should take it,” he said,
“ merely as a sign of the coming of the day of the Lord.”
And he was convinced that the day of the Lord was coming
— “ the termination of one of the great uiSwtQ of the human
race.” Of that he had no doubt whatever ; wherever
he looked hh saw “ calamities, wars, tumults, pestilences,
earthquakes, etc., all marking the time of one of God’s
peculiar seasons of visitation.” His only uncertainty
was whether this termination of an a\wv would turn
out to be the absohitely final one ; but that he believed
“ no created being knows or can know.” In any case
he had “ not the slightest expectation of what is commonly
meant by the Millennium.” And his only consolation
was that he preferred the present ministry, inefficient as
it was, to the Tories.

He had planned a great work on Church and State,
in which he intended to lay bare the causes and to point
out the remedies of the evils which afilicted society. Its
theme was to be, not the alliance or union, but the absolute
identity of the Church and the State ; and he felt sure
that if only this fundamental truth were fully realised
by the public, a general reformation would follow.
Unfortunately, however, as time went on, the public
seemed to realise it less and less. In spite of his protests,
not only were Jews admitted to Parliament, but a Jew was
actually appointed a governor of Christ’s Hospital ; and

DR. ARNOLD 109

Scripture was not made an obligatorj’ subject at the
London University.

There was one point in his theory which was not quite
plain to Dr. Arnold. If Church and State were absolutely
identical, it became important to decide precisely which
classes of persons were to be excluded, owing to their
beliefs, from the community. Jews, for instance, were
decidedly outside the pale ; while Dissenters — so Dr.
Arnold argued — ^were as decidedly within it. But what
was the position of the Unitarians ? Were they, or were
they not. Members of the Church of Christ ? This was
one of those puzzling questions which deepened the frown
upon the Doctor’s forehead and intensified the pursing of
his lips. He thought long and earnestly upon the subject ;
he wrote elaborate letters on it to various correspondents ;
but his conclusions remained indefinite. “ My great
objection to Unitarianism,” he wrote, “ in its present
form in England, is that it makes Christ virtually dead.”
Yet he expressed “ a fervent hope that if we could get
rid of the Athanasian Creed many good Unitarians would
join their fellow Christians in bowing the knee to Him who
is Lord both of the dead and the living.” Amid these
perplexities, it was disquieting to learn that “ Unitarianism
is becoming very prevalent in Boston.” He inquired
anxiously as to its “ complexion ” there ; but received no
very illuminating answer. The whole matter continued
to be wrapped in a painful obscurity : there were, he
believed, Unitarians and Unitarians ; and he could say
no more.

In the meantime, pending the completion of his great
work, he occupied himself with putting forward various
suggestions of a practical kind. He advocated the restora-
tion of the Order of Deacoas, which, he observed, had
long been “ quoad the reality, dead ” ; for he believed
that “ some plan of this sort might be the small end of
the wedge, by which Antichrist might hereafter be burst
asunder like the Dragon of Bel’s temple.” But the Order

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of Deacons was never restored, and Dr. Arnold turned
his attention elsewhere, urging in a weighty pamphlet
the desirability of authorising military officers, in congrega-
tions where it was impossible to procure the presence
of clergy, to administer the Eucharist, as well as Baptism.
It was with the object of laying such views as these before
the public — “ to tell them plainly,” as he said, “ the evils
that exist, and lead them, if I can, to their causes and
remedies,” — that he started, in 1831, a weekly newspaper.
The Englishman's Register. The paper was not a success,
in spite of the fact that it set out to improve its readers
morally and that it preserved, in every article, an avowedly
Christian tone. After a few weeks, and after he had spent
upon it more than £200, it came to an end.

Altogether, the prospect w'as decidedly discouraging.
After all his efforts, the absolute identity of Church and
State remained as unrecognised as ever. “ So deeply,”
he was at last obliged to confess, “ is the distinction
between the Church and the State seated in our laws, our
language, and our very notions, that nothing less than a
miraculous interposition of God’s Providence seems
capable of eradicating it.” Dr. Arnold waited in vain.

But he did not w'ait in idleness. He attacked the
same question from another side ; he explored the w'ritings
of the Christian Fathers, and began to compose a com-
mentary on the New Testament. In his view, the
Scriptures were as fit a subject as any other book for free
inquiry and the exercise of the individual judgment, and
it was in this spirit that he set about the interpretation
of them. He was not afraid of facing apparent
difficulties, of admitting inconsistencies, or even errors,
in the sacred text. Thus he observed that “ in Chronicles
xi. 20, and xiii. 2, there is a decided difference in the
parentage of Abijah’s mother;” — “which,” he added, “is
curious on any supposition.” And at one time he had
serious doubts as to the authorship of the Epistle to the
Hebrews. But he was able, on various problematical

DR. ARNOLD

201

points, to suggest interesting solutions. At first, for
instance, he could not but be startled by the cessation of
miracles in the early Church ; but on consideration he
came to the conclusion that this phenomenon might be
“ truly accounted for by the supposition that none but
the Apostles ever conferred miraculous powers, and that
therefore they ceased of course after one generation.”
Nor did he fail to base his exegesis, whenever possible,
upon an appeal to general principles. One of his admirers
points out how Dr. Arnold “ vindicated God’s command
to Abraham to sacrifice his son, and to the Jews to exter-
minate the nations of Canaan, by explaining the principles
on which these commands were given, and their reference
to the moral state of those to whom they were addressed ;
thereby educing light out of darkness, unravelling the
thread of God’s religious education of the human race,
and holding up God’s marvellous counsels to the devout
wonder and meditation of the thoughtful believer.”

There was one of his friends, however, who did not
share this admiration for the Doctor’s methods of Scrip-
tural interpretation. W. G. Ward, while still a young
man at Oxford, had come under his influence, and had
been for some time one of his most enthusiastic disciples.
But the star of Newman was rising at the University ;
Ward soon felt the attraction of that magnetic power ;
and his belief in his old teacher began to waver. It
was, in particular. Dr. Arnold’s treatment of the Seriptures
which filled Ward’s argumentative mind, at first with
distrust, and at last with positive antagonism. To
subject the Bible to free inquiry, to exercise upon it the
criticism of the individual judgment — ^where might not
such methods lead ? Who could say that they would
not end in Socinianism ? — nay, in Atheism itself ? If the
text of Scripture was to be submitted to the searchings
of human reason, how could the question of its inspiration
escape the same tribunal ? And the proofs of revelation,
and even of the existence of God ? What human faculty

202 EMINENT VICTORIANS

was capable of deciding upon such enormous questions ?
And would not the logical result be a condition of universal
doubt ? “ On a very moderate computation,” Ward
argued, “ live times the amount of a man’s natural life
might qualify a person endowed with extraordinary
genius to have some faint notion (though even this we
(ioubt) on which side truth lies.” It was not that he had
the slightest doubt of Dr. Aniold’s orthodoxy — ^Dr.
AmolJ, whose piety was universally recognised — Dr.
Arnold, who had held up to scorn and execration Strauss’s
“ Leben Jesu ” without reading it. Wliat Ward complained
of was the Doctor’s lack of logic, not his lack of faith.
Could he not see that if he really carried out his own
principles to a logical conclusion he would eventually
find himself, precisely, in the arms of Strauss ? The
young man, whose personal friendship remained unshaken,
determined upon an interview, and went down to Rugby
primed with first principles, syllogisms, and dilemmas.
Finding that the headmaster was busy in school, he spent
the afternoon reading novels on the sofa in the drawing-
room. 'When at last, late in the evening, the Doctor
returned, tired out with his day’s work. Ward fell upon
him with all his vigour. The contest was long and furioiis ;
it was also entirely inconclusive. When it was over.
Ward, with none of his brilliant arguments disposed of,
and none of his probing questions satisfactorily answered,
returned to the University, to plunge headlong into the
vortex of the Oxford Movement ; and Dr. Arnold, worried,
perplexed, and exhausted, went to bed, where he remained
for the next thirty-six hours.

The Commentary on the New Testament was never
finished, and the great work on Church and State itself
remained a fragment. Dr. Arnold’s active mind was
diverted from political and theological speculations to
the study of philology and to historical cojnposition. His
Roman History, which he regarded as “ the chief monu-
ment of his historical fame ” was based partly upon the

DR. ARNOLD

208

researches of Niebuhr, and partly upon an aversion to
Gibbon. “ My highest ambition,” he wrote, “ is to make
my history the very reverse of Gibbon — in this respect,
that whereas the whole spirit of his work, from its low
morality, is hostile to religion, without speaking directly
against it, so my greatest desire would be, in my History,
by its high morals and its general tone, to be of use to the
cause without actually bringing it forward.” These
efforts were rewarded, in 1841, by the Profcssorshi]} of
Modem History at Oxford. Meanwhile, he was engaged
in the study of the Sanscrit and Sclavonic languages,
bringing out an elaborate edition of Thucydides, and
carrying on a voluminous correspondence upon a multitude
of topics with a large circle of men of learning. At his
death, his published works, composed during such intervals
as he could spare from the management of a great public
school, filled, besides a large number of pamphlets and
articles, no less than seventeen volumes. It was no wonder
that Carlyle, after a visit to Rugby, should have
characterised Dr. Arnold as a man of “ unhasting, un-
resting diligence.”

Mrs. Arnold, too, no doubt agreed with Carlyle.
During the first eight years of their married life, she bore
him six children ; and four more were to follow. In this
large and growing domestic circle his hours of relaxation
were spent. There those who had only known him in
his professional capacity were surprised to find him dis-
playing the tenderness and jocosity of a parent. The
dignified and stem headmaster was actually seen to dandle
infants and to caracole upon the hearthrug on all fours.
Yet, we are told, “ the sense of his authority as a father
was never lost in his playfulness as a companion.” On
more serious occasions, the voice of the spiritual teacher
sometimes made itself heard. An intimate friend de-
scribed how “ on a comparison having been made in
his family circle, which seemed to place St. Paul above
St. John,” the tears rushed to the Doctor’s eyes and bow,

204 EMINENT VICTORIANS

repeating one of the verecs from St. John, he bej^ed that
the eomparison might never again be made. The longer
holidays were spent in Westmoreland, whefe, rambling
with his offspring among the mountains, gathering wild
flowers, and pointing out the beauties of Nature, Dr.
Arnold enjoyed, as he himself would often say, “ an almost
awful happiness.” Music he did not appreciate, though
he occasionally desired his eldest boy, Matthew, to sing
him the Confirmation Hymn of Dr. Hinds, to which he
had become endeared, owing to its use in Rugby chapel.
But his lack of ear was, he considered, amply recompensed
by his love of flow^ers : “ they are my music,” he declared.
Yet, in such a matter, he was careftil to refrain from an
excess of feeling, such as, in his opinion, marked the
famous lines of Wordsworth :

“ To me the meanest jflower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.’*

He found the sentiment morbid. “ Life,” he &aid,“ is
not long enough to take such intense interest in objects
in themselves so little.” As for the animal world, his
feelings towards it were of a very different cast. “ The
whole subject,” he said, “ of the brute creation is to me
one of such painful mystery, that I dare not approach it.”
The Unitarians themselves were a less distressing thought.

Once or twice he found time to visit the Continent,
and the letter's and journals recording in minute detail
his reflections and impressions in France or Italy show
us that Dr. Arnold preserved, in spite of the distractions
of foreign scenes and foreign manners, his accustomed
habits of mind. Taking very little interest in works of
art, he was occasionally moved by the beauty of natural
objects ; but his principal pre-occupation remained with
the moral aspects of things. From this point of view,
he found much to reprehend in the conduct of his own
countrymen. “ I fear,” he wrote, “ that our countrymen
who live abroad are not in the best possible moral state,

DR. ARNOLD

205

however much they may do in science or literature.”
And this was unfortunate, because “ a thorough English
gentleman — Christian, manly, and enlightened — ^is more,
I believe, than Guizot or Sismondi could comprehend ;
it is a finer specimen of human nature than any other
country, I believe, could furnish.” Nevertheless, our
travellers would imitate foreign customs without discrimi-
nation, “as in the absurd habit of not eating fish with a
knife, borrowed from the French, who do it because they
have no knives fit for use.” Places, no less than people,
aroused similar reflections. By Pompeii, Dr. Arnold
was not particularly impressed. “ There is only,” he
observed, “ the same sort of interest with which one would
see the ruins of Sodom and Gomorrah, but indeed there
is less. One is not authorised to aseribe so solemn a
character to the destruction of Pompeii.” The lake of
Como moved him more profoundly. As he gazed upon the
overwhelming beauty around him, he thought of “ moral
evil,” and was appalled by the contrast. “May the
sense of moral evil,” he prayed, “ be as strong in me as
my delight in external beauty, for in a deep sense of moral
evil, more perhaps than in anything else, abides a saving
knowledge of God ! ”

.His prayer was answered: Dr. Arnold was never in
any danger of losing his sense of moral evil. If the
landscapes of Italy only served to remind him of it, how
could he forget it among the boys at Rugby School ?
The daily sight of so many young creatures in the hands
of the Evil One filled him with agitated grief. “ 'When
the spring and activity of youth,” he wrote, “ is altogether
unsanctified by anything pure and elevated in its desires,
it becomes a spectacle that is as dizzying and almost
more morally distressing than the shouts and gambols
of a set of lunatics.” One thing struck him as particularly
strange : “ it is very startling,” he said, “ to see so much
of sin combined with so little of sorrow.” The naughti^t

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EMINENT VICTORIANS

boys positively seemed to enjoy themselves most. There
were moments when he almost lost faith in his whole
system of education, when he began to doubt whether
some far more radical reforms than any he had attempted
might not be necessary, before the multitude of children
under his charge — shouting and gamboling, and yet
plunged all the while deep in moral evil — could ever be
transfonned into a set of Christian gentlemen. But
then he remembered his general principles, the conduct
of Jehovah with the Chosen People, and the childhood
of the human race. No, it was for him to make himself,
as one of his pupils afterwards described him, in the
words of Bacon, “ kin to God in spirit ” ; he would
rule the school majestically from on high. He would
deliver a series of sermons analysing “ the six vices ”
by which “ great schools were corrupted, and changed
from the likeness of God’s temple to that of a den of
thieves.” He would exhort, he would denounce, he would
sweep through the corridors, he would turn the pages
of Facciolati’s lexicon more imposingly than ever ; and Hie
rest he would leave to the Praepostors in the Sixth Form.

Upon the boys in the Sixth Form, indeed, a strange
burden would seem to have fallen. Dr. Arnold himself
was very well aware. of this. “ I cannot deny,” he told
them in a sermon, “ that you have an anxious duty — a
duty which some might suppose was too heavy for your
years ” ; and every term he pointed out to them, in a short
address, the responsibilities of their position, and impressed
upon them “ the enormous influence ” they possessed
“ for good or for evil.” Nevertheless most youths of
seventeen, in spite of the warnings of their elders, have
a singular trick of carrying moral burdens lightly. The
Doctor might preach and look grave ; but young Brooke
was ready enough to preside at a fight behind the Chapel,
though he was in the Sixth, and knew that, fighting was
against the rules. At their best, it may be supposed that
the Praepostors administered a kind of barbaric justice ;

DR. ARNOLD

207

but they were not always at their best, and the pages of
Tom Brown's Schooldays show us what was no doubt the
normal condition of affairs under Dr. Arnold, when
the boys in the Sixth Form were weak or brutal, and the
blackguard Flashman, in the intervals of swigging brandy-
punch with his boon companions, amused himself by
roasting fags before the fire.

But there was an exceptional kind of boy, upon whom
the high-pitched exhortations of Dr. Arnold produced
a very different effect. A minority of susceptible and
serious youths fell completely under his sway, responded
like wax to the pressure of his influence, and moulded
iheir whole lives with passionate reverence upon the
teaching of their adored master. Conspicuous among
these was Arthur Clough. Having been sent to Rugby at
the age of ten, he quickly entered into every phase of
school life, though, we are told, “ a weakness in his ankles
prevented him from taking a prominent part in the games
of the place.” At the age of sixteen, he was in the Sixth
Form, and not merely a Praepostor, but head of the School
House. Never did Dr. Arnold have an apter pupil.
This earnest adolescent, with the weak ankles and the
solemn faec, lived entirely with the highest ends in view.
He thought of nothing but moral good, moral evil, moral
influence, and moral responsibility. Some of his early
letters have been preserved, and they reveal both the
intensity with which he felt the importance of his own
position, and the strange stress of spirit under which he
laboured. “ I have been in one continued state of excite-
ment for at least the last three years,” he wrote when he
was not yet seventeen, “ and now comes the time of
exhaustion.” But he did not allow himself to rest, and
a few months later he was writing to a schoolfellow as
follows : — “ I verily believe my whole being is soaked
through with the wishing and hoping and striving to do
the school good, or rather to keep it up and hinder it from
falling in this, I do think, very critical time, so that my

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EMINENT VICTORIANS

cares and affections and conversations, thoughts, words,
and deeds look to that involuntarily. I am afraid you
will be inclined to think this ‘ cant,’ and I am conscious
that even one’s truest feelings, if very frequently put out
in the light, do make a bad and disagreeable appearance ;
but this, however, is true, and even if I am carrying it too
far, I do not think it has made me really forgetful of my
personal friends, such as, in particular. Cell and Burbidge
and Walrond, and yourself, my dear Simpkinson.”
Perhaps it was not surprising that a young man brought
up in sueh an atmosphere should have fallen a prey, at
Oxford, to the frenzies of religious eontroversy ; that he
should have been driven almost out of his wits by the
ratiocinations of W. G. Ward ; that he should have lost his
faith; that he shoidd have spent the rest of his existence
lamenting that loss, both in prose and verse ; and that he
should have eventually succumbed, conscientiously doing
up brown paper parcels for Florence Nightingale.

In the earlier years of his headmastership Dr. Arnold
had to face a good deal of opposition. His advanced
religious views were disliked, and there were many parents
to whom his system of school government did not com-
mend itself. But in time this hostility melted away.
Succeeding generations of favourite pupils began to spread
his fame through the Universities. At Oxford especially
men were profoundly impressed by the pious aims of the
boys from Rugby. It was a new thing to see under-
graduates going to Chapel more often than they were
obliged, and visiting the good poor. Their reverent
admiration for Dr. Arnold was no less remarkable. When-
ever two of his old pupils met they joined in his praises ;
and the sight of his picture had been known to call
forth, from one who had not even reached the Sixth,
exclamations of rapture lasting for ten minutes an d filling
with astonishment the young men from other schools
who happened to be present. He became a celebrity ; he
became at last a great man. Rugby prospered ; its numbers

DR. ARNOLD

m

rose higher than ever before ; and, after thirteen years
as headmaster, Dr. Arnold began to feel that his work
there was accomplished, and that he might look forward
either to other labours or, perhaps, to a dignified retire-
ment. But it was not to be.

His father had died suddenly at the age of fifty-three
from angina pectoris ; and he himself was haunted by
forebodings of an early death. To be snatched away
without a warning, to come in a moment from the
seductions of this World to the presence of Eternity — ■
the most ordinary actions, the most casual remarks,
served to keep him in remembrance of that dreadful
possibility. When one of his little boys clapped his hands
at the thought of the approaching holidays, the Doctor
gently checked him, and repeated the story of his own
early childhood ; how his own father had made him read
aloud a sermon on the text “ Boast not thyself of to-
morrow ” ; and how, within the week, his father was
dead. On the title-page of his MS. volume of sermons
he was always careful to write the date of its commence
ment, leaving a blank for that of its completion. One
of his children asked him the meaning of this. “ It
is one of the most solemn things I do,” he replied,
‘‘ to write the beginning of that sentence, and think that
I may perhaps not live to finish it.”

It was noticed that in the spring of 1842 such thoughts
seemed to be even more frequently than usual in his
mind. He was only in his forty-seventh year, but he
dwelt darkly on the fragility of human existence. To-
wards the end of May, he began to keep a diary — a
private memorandum of his intimate communings with
the Almighty. Here, evening after evening, in the
traditional language of religious devotion, he humbled
himself before God, prayed for strength and purity,
and threw himself upon the mercy of the Most High.
“Another day and another month succeed,” he wrote
on May 81st. “May God keep my mind and heart

p

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fixed on Him, and cleanse me from all sin. I would
wish to keep a watch over my tongue, as to vehement
speaking and censuring of others. ... I would desire
to remember my latter end to which I am approaching.
. . . May God keep me in the hour of death, through
Jesus Christ ; and preserve me from every fear, as well
as from presumption.” On June 2nd he wrote, “ Again
the day is over and I am going to rest. O Lord, preserve
me this night, and strengthen me to bear whatever
Thou shalt sec fit to lay on me, whether pain, sickness,
danger, or distress.” On Simday, June 5th, the reading
of the newspaper aroused “ painful and solemn ”
reflections. — “ So much of sin and so much of suffering
in the world, as are there displayed, and no one seems able
to remedy either. And then the thought of my own
l)rivate life, so full of comforts, is very startling.” He
was puzzled ; but he concluded with a prayer : “ May
I be kept humble and zealous, and may God give me
grace to labour in my generation for the good of my
brethren, and for His Glory ! ”

The end of the term was approaching, and to all
appearance the Doctor was in excellent spirits. On
June 11th after a hard day’s work, he spent the evening
with a friend in the discussion of various topics upon
which he often touched in his conversation — ^the com-
parison of the art of medicine in bai'barous ^d
civilised ages, the philological importance of provincial
vocabularies, and the threatening prospect of the moral
condition of the United States. Left alone, he turned
to his Diary. “ The day after to-morrow,” he wrote,
“ is my birthday, if I am permitted to live to see it —
my forty-seventh birthday since my birth. How large
a portion of my life on earth is already passed ! And
then — ^what is to follow this life ? How visibly my out-
ward work seems contracting and softening away into
the gentler employments of old age. In one sense, how
nearly can I now say, ‘Vixi.’ And I thank God that,

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211

as far as ambition is concerned, it is, I trust, fully morti-
fied ; I have no desire other than to step back from my
present place in the world, and not to rise to a higher.
Still there are works which, with God’s permission, 1
would do before the night cometh.” Dr. Arnold was
thinking of his great work on Church and State.

Early next morning he awoke with a sharp pain in
his chest. The pain increasing, a physician was sent for ;
and in the meantime Mrs. Arnold read aloud to her
husband the Fifty-first Psalm. Upon one of their boys
coming into the room, “My son, thank God for me,”
said Dr. Arnold ; and as the boy did not at once catch
his meaning, he added, “ Thank God, Tom, for giving
me this pain ; I have suffered so little pain in my life
that I feel it is very good for me. Now God has given
it to me, and I do so thank Him for it.” Then Mrs.
Arnold read from the Prayer-book the ‘ Visitation of
the Sick,’ her husband listening with deep attention,
and assenting with an emphatic ‘ Yes ’ at the end of many
of the sentences. When the physician arrived, he per-
ceived at once the gravity of the case : it was an attack
of angina pectoris. He began to prepare some laxidanum,
while Mrs. Arnold went out to fetch the children. All
at once, as the medical man was bending over his glasses,
there was a rattle from the bed ; a convulsive struggle
followed ; and, when the unhappy woman, with the
children, and all the servants, rushed into the room. Dr.
Arnold had passed from his perplexities for ever.

There can be little doubt that what he had achieved
justified the prediction of the Provost of Oriel that he
would “ change the face of education all through the public
schools of England.” It is true that, so far as the actual
machinery of education was concerned. Dr. Arnold not
only failed to effect a change, but deliberately adhered
to the old system. The monastic and literary concep-
tions of education, which had their roots in the Middle

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EMINENT VICTORIANS

Ages, and had been accepted and strengthened at the
revival of Learning, he adopted almost without hesitation.
Under him, the public school remained, in essentials,
a conventual establishment, devoted to the teaching of
Greek and Latin grammar. Had he set on foot reforms
in these directions, it seems probable that he might have
succeeded in carrying the parents of England with him.
The moment was ripe ; there was a general desire for
educational changes ; and Dr. Arnold’s great reputation
eould hardly have been resisted. As it was, he threw
the whole weight of his influence into the opposite scale,
and the ancient system became more firmly established
than ever.

The changes which he did effect were of a very
different nature. By introducing morals and religion
into his scheme of education, he altered the whole
atmosphere of Public School life. Henceforward the
old rough-and-tumble, which was typified by the regime
of Keate at Eton, became impossible. After Dr. Arnold,
no public school could venture to ignore the virtues of
respectability. Again, by his introduction of the pre-
fectorial system. Dr. Arnold produced far-reaching effects
— effects which he himself, perliaps, would have found
perplexing. In his day, when the school hours were over,
the boys were free to enjoy themselves as they liked ;
to bathe, to fish, to ramble for long afternoons in the
country, collecting eggs or gathering flowers. “ The
taste of the boys at this period,” writes an old Rugbsean
who had been under Arnold, “ leaned strongly towards
flowers ” ; the words have an odd look to-day. The
modem reader of Tom Brown's Schooldays searches in
vain for any reference to compulsory games, house
colours, or cricket averages. In those days, when boys
played games they played them for pleasure; but in
those days the prefectorial system — ^the system which
hands over the life of a school to an oligarchy of a dozen
youths of seventeen — ^was still in its infancy, and had

DR. ARNOLD

213

not yet borne its finiit. Teachers and prophets have
strange after-histories ; and that of Dr. Arnold has been
no exception. The earnest enthusiast who strove to
make his pupils Christian gentlemen and who governed
his school according to the principles of the Old Testa-
ment has proved to be the founder of the worship of
athletics and the worship of good form. Upon those two
poles our public schools have turned for so long that we
have almost come to believe that such is their essential
nature, and that an English public schoolboy who wears
the wrong clothes and takes no interest in football is
a contradiction in terms. Yet it was not so before Dr.
Arnold ; will it always be so after him ? We shall see.

214

EMINENT VICTORIANS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Dean Stanley. Lije and Correspondence of Dr, Arnold,
Thomas Hughes. Tom Brownes Schooldays.

Sir H. Maxwell-Ly te. H istory of Eton College.

Wilfrid Ward. W. Q. Ward and the Oxford Movement.
A. H. Clough, Letters.

An Old Bugbsean. JRccolhctions of Rugby.

Thomas Arnold. Passages in a Wandering Life.

THE END OF GENERAL GORDON

Gi \LKAi Gordon

THE END OF GENERAL GORDON

During the year 1888 a solitary English gentleman was
to be seen, wandering, with a thiek book under his arm,
in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem. His unassuming
figure, short and slight, with its half-gliding, half-tripping
motion, gave him a boyish aspect, which contrasted,
oddly, but not unpleasantly, with the touch of gray on
his hair and whiskers. There was the same contrast
— enigmatic and attractive — ^between the sunburnt brick-
red complexion — the hue of the seasoned traveller
— and the large blue eyes, with their look of almost
childish sincerity. To the friendly inquirer, he would
explain, in a low, soft, and very distinct voice, that he
was engaged in elucidating four questions — the site of
the crucifixion, the line of division between the tribes of
Benjamin and Judah, the identification of Gibeon, and
the position of the Garden of Eden. He W'as also, he
would add, most anxious to discover the spot where the
Ark first touched ground, after the subsidence of the
Flood : he believed, indeed, that he had solved that pro-
blem, as a reference to some passages in the book which
he was carrying would show.

This singular person was General Gordon, and his
book was the Holy Bible.

In such complete retirement from the world and the
ways of men, it might have seemed that a life of inordinate
activity had found at last a longed-for, a final peaceful-
ness. For month after month, for an entire year, the
General lingered by the banks of the Jordan. But then
the enchantment was suddenly broken. Once more
adventure claimed him; he plunged into the whirl of

217

218

EMINENT VICTORIANS

high affairs; his fate was mingled with the frenzies of
Empire and the doom of peoples. And it was not in
peace and rest, but in ruin and horror, that he reached
his end.

The circumstances of that tragic history, so famous,
so bitterly debated, so often and so controversially
described, remain full of suggestion for the curious
examiner of the past. There emerges from those obscure,
unhappy records an interest, not merely political and
historical, but human and dramatic. One catches a
vision of strange characters, moved by mysterious
impulses, interacting in queer complication, and hurrying
at last — ^so it almost seems — like creatures in a puppet
show to a predestined catastrophe. The characters,
too, have a charm of their own : they are curiously
English. What other nation on the face of the earth
could have produced Mr. Gladstone and Sir Evelyn
Baring and Lord Hartington and General Gordon ?
Alike in their emphasis and their lack of emphasis, in
their eccentricity and their conventionality, in their
matter-of-factness and their romance, these four figures
seem to embody the mingling contradictions of the
English spirit. As for the mise-en-schne, it is perfectly
appropriate. But first let us glance at the earlier
adventures of the hero of the piece.

Charles George Gordon was bom in 1883. His father,
of Highland and military descent, was himself a Lieutenant-
General; his mother came of a family of merchants,
distinguished for their sea-voyages into remote regions
of the Globe. As a boy, Charlie was remarkable for his
high spirits, pluck, and love of mischief. Destined for
the Artillery, he was sent to the Academy at Woolwich,
where some other characteristics made Hieir appearance.
On one occasion, when the cadets had been forbidden to
leave the dining-room and the senior corporal stood with
outstretched arms in the doorway to prevait their exit,
Charlie Gordon put his head down, and, butting the

THE END OF GENERAL GORDON 219

ofiScer in the pit of the stomach, projected him down a
flight of stairs and through a glass door at the bottom.
For this act of insubordination he was nearly dismissed ;
while the Captain of his Company predicted that he would
never make fin ofiScer. A little later, when he was eighteen,
it came to the knowledge of the authorities that bullying
was rife at the Academy. The new-comers were questioned,
and one of them said that Charlie Gordon had hit him
over the head with a clothes-brush. He had worked
well, and his record was on the whole a good one; but
the authorities took a serious view of the case, and held
back his commission for six months. It was owing to
this delay that he went into the Royal Engineers, instead
of the Royal Artillery.

He was sent to Pembroke, to work at the erection
of fortifications; and at Pembroke those religious con-
victions, which never afterwards left him, first gained
a hold upon his mind. Under the influence of his sister
Augusta and of a “ very religious captain of the name
of Drew,” he began to reflect upon his sins, look up
texts, and hope for salvation. Though he had never
been confirmed — he never was confirmed — he took the
sacrament every Sunday ; and he eagerly perused the
Priceless Diamond, Scott’s Commentaries, and The Remains
of the Rev. R. IdeCheyne. “ No novels or worldly books,’!
he wrote to his sister, “come up to the Commentaries
of Scott. ... I remember well when you used to get
them in numbers, and I used to laugh at them ; but,
thank God, it is different with me now. I feel much
happier and more contented than I used to do. I did not
like Pembroke, but now I would not wish for any prettier
place. I have got a horse and gig, and Drew and myself
drive all about the country. 1 hope my dear father and
mother think of eternal things. . . . Dearest Augusta,
pray for me, I beg of you.”

He was twenty-one; the Crimean War broke out;
and before the year was over he had managed to get

220

EMINENT VICTORIANS

himself transferred to Balaclava. During the siege of
Sebastopol he behaved with conspicuous gallantry.
Upon the declaration of peace, he was sent to Bessarabia
to assist in determining the frontier between Russia and
Turkey, in accordance with the treaty of Paris; and
u 2 )on this duty he was occupied for nearly two years.
Not long after his return home, in 1860, war was declared
upon China. Captain Gordon was despatched to the
scene of operations, but the fighting was over before he
arrived. Nevertheless, he was to remain for the next
four years in China, where he was to lay the foundations
of an extraordinary renown.

Though he was too late to take part in the capture
of the Taku Forts, he was in time to witness the destruc-
tion of the Summer Palace at Pekin — the act by which
Lord Elgin, in the name of European civilisation, took
vengeance upon the barbarism of the East.

The war was over; but the British army remained
in the country, until the payment of an indemnity by
the Chinese Government was completed. A camp was
formed at Tientsin, and Gordon was occupied in setting
up huts for the troops. While he was thus engaged, he
had a slight attack of small-pox. “ I am glad to say,”
he told his sister, “ that this disease has brought me back
to my Saviour, and I trust in future to be a better
Christian than I have been hitherto.”

Curiously enough a similar circumstance had, more
than twenty years earlier, brought about a singular
succession of events which were now upon the point of
opening the way to Gordon’s first great adventure. In
1837, a village schoolmaster near Canton had been
attacked by illness ; and, as in the case of Gordon,
illness had been followed by a religious revulsion. Hong-
siu-tsuen — for such was his name — saw visions, went
into ecstasies, and entered into relations with the Deity.
Shortly afterwords he fell in with a Methodist missionary
from America, who instructed him in the Christian

THE END OP GENERAL GORDON

221

religion. The new doctrine, working upon the mystical
ferment already in Hong’s mind, produced a remark-
able result. lie was, he declared, the prophet of God ;
he was more — he was the Son of God ; he was Tien
W ang, the Celestial king : he was the younger brother
of Jesus. The times were propitious, and proselytes
soon gathered around him. Having conceived a grudge
against the Government, owing to his failure in an examina-
tion, Hong gave a political turn to his teaching, which
soon developed into a propaganda of rebellion against
the rule of the Manchus and the Mandarins. The
authorities took fright, attempted to suppress Hong by
force, and failed. The movement spread. By 1850
the rebels were overrunning the populous and flourishing
delta of the Yang-tsc-Kiang, and had become a formid-
able force. In 1853 they captured Nankin, which was
henceforth their capital. The Tien Wang established
himself in a splendid palace, and proclaimed his new
evangel. Ilis theogony included the wife of God, or the
celestial Mother, the wife of Jesus, or the celestial daughter-
in-law, and a sister of Jesus, whom he married to one of
his lieutenants, who thus became the celestial son-in-law ;
the Holy Ghost, however, was eliminated. His mission
was to root out Demons and Manchus from the face of
the earth, and to establish Taiping, the reign of eternal
peace. In the meantime, retiring into the depths of
his palace, he left the further conduct of earthly opera-
tions to his lieutenants, upon whom he bestowed the
title of “ Wangs ” (kings), while he himself, surrounded
by thirty wives and one hundred concubines, devoted
his energies to the spiritual side of his mission. The
Taiping Rebellion, as it came to be called, had now
reached its furthest extent. The rebels were even able
to occupy, for more than a year, the semi-European city
of Shanghai. But then the tide turned. The latent
forces of the Empire gradually asserted themselves.
The rebels lost ground, their armies were defeated, and

222

EMINENT VICTORIANS

in 1859 Nankin itself was besieged and the Celestial
King trembled in his palace. The end seemed to be
at hand, when there was a sudden twist of Fortune’s
wheel. The war of 1860 , the invasion of China by
European armies, their march into the interior, and
their occupation of Pekin, not only saved the rebels from
destruction but allowed them to recover, the greater
part of what they had lost. Once more they seized upon
the provinces of the delta, once more they menaced
Shanghai. It was clear that the imperial army was
incompetent, and the Shanghai merchants determined
to provide for their own safety as best they could. They
accordingly got together a body of troops, partly Chinese
and partly European and under European officers, to
which they entrusted the defence of the town. This
small force, which, after a few preliminary successes,
received from the Chinese Government" the title of the
“ Ever Victorious Army,” was able to hold the rebels
at bay, but it could do no more. For two years Shanghai
was in constant danger. The Taipings, steadily growing
in power, were spreading destruction far and wide.
The Ever Victorious Army was the only force capable
of opposing them, and the Ever Victorious Army was
defeated more often than not. Its first European leader
had been killed ; his successor quarrelled with the Chinese
Governor, Li Hung Chang, and was dismissed. At
last it was determined to ask the General at the head of
the British army of occupation for the loan of an officer
to command the force. The English, who had been at
first inelined to favour the Taipings, on religious grounds,
were now convinced, on practical grounds, of the
necessity of suppressing them. It was in these circum-
stances that, early in 1868 , the command of the Ever
Victorious Army was offered to Gordon. He accepted
it, received the title of General from the Chinese
authorities, and entered forthwith upon his new task.
He was just thirty.

THE END OF GENERAL GORDON

228

In eighteen months, he told Li Hung Chang, the
business would be finished ; and he was as good as his
word. The difficulties before him were very great. A
vast tract of country was in the possession of the rebels
— an area, at the lowest estimate, of 14,000 square miles
with a population of twenty millions. For centuries
this low-lying plain of the Yang-tsc delta, rich in silk and
tea, fertilised by elaborate irrigation, and covered with
great walled cities, had been one of the most flourishing
districts in China. Though it was now being rapidly
ruined by the depredations of the Taipings, its strategic
strength was obviously enormous. Gordon, however, with
the eye of a born general, perceived that he could convert
the very feature of the country which, on the face of it,
most favoured an army on the defence — its complicated
geographical system of interlacing roads and water-
ways, canals, lakes and rivers — into a means of offensive
warfare. The force at his disposal was small, but it
was mobile. He had a passion for map-making, and had
already, in his leisure hours, made a careful survey of
the country round Shanghai ; he was thus able to execute
a series of manoeuvres which proved fatal to the enemy.
By swift marches and counter-marches, by sudden
attacks and surprises, above all by the despatch of armed
steamboats up the circuitous waterways into positions
from which they could fall upon the enemy in reverse,
he was able gradually to force back the rebels, to cut
them off piece-meal in the field, and to seize upon their
cities. But, brilliant as these operations were, Gordon’s
military genius showed itself no less unmistakably in
other directions. The Ever Victorious Army, recruited
from the riff-:raff of Shanghai, was an ill-disciplined, ill-
organised body of about three thousand men, constantly
on the verge of mutiny, supporting itself on plunder, and,
at the slightest provocation, melting into thin air. Gordon,
by sheer force of character, established over this in-
coherent mass of ruffians an extraordinary ascendancy.

224

EMINENT VICTORIANS

He drilled them with rigid severity ; he put them into
a uniform, armed them systematically, substituted pay
for loot, and was even able, at last, to introduce
r^ulations of a sanitary kind. There were some
terrible scenes, in which the General, alone, faced the
whole furious army, and quelled it : scenes of rage,
desperation, towering courage, and summary execution.
Eventually he attained to an almost magical prestige.
Walking at the head of his troops, with nothing but a
light cane in his hand, he seemed to pass through every
danger with the scatheless equanimity of a demi-God.
The Taipings themselves were awed into a strange
reverence. More than once their leaders, in a frenzy
of fear and admiration, ordered the sharp-shooters not
to take aim at the advancing figure of the faintly smiling
Englishman.

It is significant that Gordon found it easier to win
battles and to crush mutineers than to keep on good
terms with the Chinese authorities. He had to act in
co-operation with a large native force ; and it was only
natural that the General at the head of it should grow
more and more jealous and angry as the Englishman’s
successes revealed more and more clearly his own in-
competence. At first, indeed, Gordon could rely upon
the support of the Governor. Li Hung Chang’s experi-
ence of Europeans had been hitherto limited to low-
class adventurers, and Gordon came as a revelation.
“It is a direct blessing from Heaven,” he noted in his
diary, “ the coming of this British Gordon. . . . He is
superior in manner and bearing to any of the foreigners
whom I have come into contact with, and does not
show outwardly that conceit which makes most of them
repugnant in my sight.” A few months later, after
he had accompanied Gordon on a victorious expedition,
the mandarin’s enthusiasm burst forth. “ What a sight
for tired eyes,” he wrote, “what an elixir for a heavy
heart — ^to see this splendid Englishman fight 1 . . .

THE END OF GENERAL GORDON

226

If there is anything that I admire nearly as much as the
superb scholarship of Tseng Kuo-fan it is the military
qualities of this fine officer. He is a glorious fellow ! ”
In his emotion, lii Hung Chang addressed Gordon as
his brother, declaring that he considered him worthy
to fill the place of the brother who is departed. Could
I have said more in all the words of the world ? ” Then
something happened which impressed and mystified the
sensitive Chinaman. “ The Englishman’s face was first
filled with a deep pleasure, and then he seemed to be
thinking of something depressing and sad ; for the smile
went from his mouth and there were tears in his eyes
when he thanked me for what I had said. Can it be that
he has, or has had, some great trouble in his life, and that
he fights recklessly to forget it, or that Death has no
terrors for him ? ” But, as lime went on, Li Hung Chang’s
attitude began to change. “ General Gordon,” he notes
in July, ” must control his tongue, even if he lets his
mind run loose.” The Englishman had accused him
of intriguing with the Chinese General, and of withholding
money due to the Ever Victorious Army. ” Why does
he not accord me the honours that are due to me, as head
of the military and civil authority in these parts ? ”
By September the Governor’s earlier transports have
been replaced by a more judicial frame of mind. “ With
his many faults, his pride, his temper, and his never-
ending demand for money, Gordon is a noble man, and
in spite of all I have said to him or about him, I will
ever think most highly of him. . . . He is an honest
man, but difficult to get on with.”

Disagreements of this kind might perhaps have been
tided over till the end of the campaign ; but an unfortunate
incident suddenly led to a more serious quarrel. Gordon’s
advance had been fiercely contested, but it had been
constant; he had captured several important towns;
and in October he laid siege to the city of Soo-chow,
once one of the most famous and splendid in China.

. Q

226

EMINENT VICTORIANS

In December, its fall being obviously imminent, the
Taiping leaders agreed to surrender it, on condition that
their lives were spared. Gordon was a party to the agree-
ment, and laid special stress upon his presence .with the
Imperial forces as a pledge of its fulfilment. No sooner,
however, was the city surrendered than the rebel “ Wangs ’
were assassinated. In his fury, it is said that Gordon
searched everywhere for Li Hung Chang with a loaded
pistol in his hand. He was convinced of the complicity
of the Governor, who, on his side, denied that he was
responsible for what had happened. “ I asked him
"why I should plot, and go round a mountain, when a
mere order, written with five strokes of the quill, would
have accomplished the same thing. He did not answer,
but he insulted me, and said he would report my treachery,
as he called it, to Shanghai and England. Let him
do so ; he cannot bring the crazy Wangs back. ’’ The
agitated Mandarin hoped to placate Gordon by a large
gratuity and an imperial medal; but the plan was not
successful. ‘‘General Gordon,” he writes, “called upon
me in his angriest mood. He repeated his former speeches
about the Wangs. I did not attempt to argue with him.

. . . He refused the 10,000 taels, which I had ready for
him, and, with an oath, said that he did not want the
Throne’s medal. This is showing the greatest disrespect.”

Gordon resigned his command ; and it was only with
the utmost reluctance that he agreed at last to resume
it. An arduous and terrible series of operations followed ;
but they were successful, and by June, 1864, the Ever
Victorious Army, having accomplished its task, was
disbanded. The Imperial forces now closed round
Nankin : the last hopes of the Tien Wang had vanished.
In the recesses of his seraglio, the Celestial King, judging
that the time had come for the conclusion of his mission,
swallowed gold leaf until he ascended to Heaven.
In July, Nankin was taken, the remaining chiefs were
executed, and the rebellion was at an end. The Chinese

THE END OF GENERAL GORDON 227

Government gave Gordon the highest rank in its military
hierarchy, and invested him with the yellow jacket and
the peacock’s feather. He rejected an enormous offer
of money ; but he could not refuse a great gold medal,
specially struck in his honour by order of the Emperor.
At the end of the year he returned to England, where the
conqueror of the Taipings was made a Companion of the
Bath.

That the English authorities should have seen fit
to recognise Gordon’s services by the reward usually
reserved for industrious clerks was typical of their
attitude towards him until the very end of his career.
Perhaps if he had been ready to make the most of the
wave of popularity which greeted him on his return
— if he had advertised his fame and, amid high circles,
played the part of Chinese Gordon in a becoming manner
— the results would have been different. But he was
by nature farouche; his soul revolted against dinner-
parties and stiff shirts; and the presence of ladies—
especially of fashionable ladies — filled him with uneasi-
ness. He had, besides, a deeper dread of the world’s
contaminations. And so, when he was appointed to
Gravesend to supervise the erection of a system of forts
at the mouth of the Thames, he remained there quietly
for six years, and at last was almost forgotten. The
forts, which were extremely expensive and quite use-
less, occupied his working hours ; his leisure he
devoted to acts of charity and to religious contempla-
tion. The neighbourhood was a poverty-stricken one,
and the kind Colonel, with his tripping step and simple
manner, was soon a familiar figure in it, chatting with
the seamen, taking- provisions to starving families, or
visiting some bedridden old woman to light her fire. He
was particularly fond of boys. Ragged street arabs and
rough sailor-lads crowded about him. They were made
free of his house and garden ; they visited him in the
evenings for lessons and advice ; he helped them, found

228

EMINENT VICTORIANS

them employment, corresponded with them when they went
out into the world. They were, he said, his Wangs.
It was only by a singular austerity of living that he was
able to afford such a variety of charitable expenses. The
easy luxuries of his class and station were unknown to
him : his clothes verged upon the shabby ; and his frugal
meals Avere eaten at a table with a drawer, into which
the loaf and plate were quickly swept at the approach
of his poor visitors. Special occasions demanded special
sacrifices. When, during the Lancashire famine, a public
Subscription was opened, finding that he had no ready
money, he remembered his Chinese medal, and, after
effacing the inscription, despatched it as an anonymous gift.

Except for his boys and his paupers, he lived alone.
In his solitude, he ruminated upon the mysteries of the
universe ; and those religious tendencies, which had
already shown themselves, now became a fixed and
dominating factor in his life. His reading was confined
almost entirely to the Bible; but the Bible he read and
re-read with an untiring, an unending, assiduity. There,
he was convinced, all truth was to be found ; and he
was equally convinced that he could find it. The doubts
of philosophers, the investigations of commentators,
the smiles of men of the world, the dogmas of Churches
— ^such things meant nothing to the Colonel. Two facts
alone were evident : there was the Bible, and there was
himself; and all that remained to be done was for him
to discover what were the Bible’s instructions, and to
act accordingly. In order to make this discovery it
was only necessary for him to read the Bible over and
over again ; and therefore, for the rest of his life, he did so.

The faith that he evolved was mystical and fatalistic ;
it was also highly unconventional. His creed, based
upon the narrow foundations of Jewish Scripture, eked
out occasionally by some English evangelical manual,
was yet wide enough to ignore every doctrinal difference,
and even, at moments, to transcend the .bounds of

THE END OF GENERAL GORDON

229

Christianity itself. The just man was he who submitted
to the Will of God, and the Will of God, inscrutable and
absolute, could be served aright only by those who turned
away from earthly desires and temporal temptations,
to rest themselves whole-heartedly upon the indwelling
Spirit. Human beings were the transitory embodiments
of souls who had existed through an infinite past and would
continue to exist through an infinite future. The world
was vanity ; the flesh was dust and ashes. “ A man,”
Gordon wrote to his sister, “ who knows not the secret,
who has not the indwelling of God revealed to him, is

like this —

He takes the promises and curses as

addressed to him as one man, and will not hear of there
being any biith before his natural birth, in any existence
except with the body he is in. The man to whom the
secret (the indwelling of God) is revealed is like this —

He applies the promises to one and the curses

to the other, if disobedient, which he must be, except
the soul is enabled by God to rule. He then sees he
is not of this world ; for when he speaks of himself he
quite disregards the body his soul lives in, which is earthy.”

Such conceptions are familiar enough in the history
of religious thought: they are those of the hermit and
the fakir ; and it might have been expected that, when
once they had taken hold upon his mind, Gordon would
have been content to lay aside the activities of his pro-
fession, and would have relapsed at last into the complete
retirement of holy meditation. But there were other
elements in his nature, which urged him towards a very
different course. He was no simple quietist. ■ He was
an English gentleman, an officer, a man of energy and
action, a lover of danger and the audacities that

230

EMINENT VICTORIANS

defeat danger, a passionate creature, flowing over with
the self-assertiveness of independent judgment and the
arbitrary temper of conunand. Whatever he might
find in his pocket-Bible, it was not for such as he to
dream out his days in devout obscurity. But, con-
veniently enough, he found nothing in his pocket-Bible
indicating that he should. What he did find was that
the Will of God was inscrutable and absolute; that
it was man’s duty to follow where God’s hand 1^ ; and,
if God’s hand led toMf^rds violent excitements and extra-
ordinary vicissitudes, that it was not only futile, it was
impious, to turn another way. Fatalism is always apt
to be a double-edged philosophy; for while, on the one
hand, it reveals the minutest occurrences as the immutable
result of a rigid chain of infinitely predestined causes,
on the other, it invests the wildest incoherences of conduct
or of circumstance with the sanctity of eternal law. And
Gordon’s fatalism was no exception. The same doctrine
that led him to dally with omens, to search for prophetic
texts, and to append, in brackets, the apotropaic initials
D.V. after every statement in his letters implying futurity,
led him also to envisage his moods and his desires, his
passing reckless whims and his deep unconscious instincts,
as the mysterious manifestations of the indwelling God.
That there was danger lurking in such a creed he was
very well aware. The grosser temptations of the world
— money and the vulgar attributes of power — had,
indeed, no charms for him; but there were subtler and
more insinuating allurements which it was not so easy
to resist. More than one observer declared that ambition
was, in reality, the essential motive in his life — ^ambition,
neither for wealth nor titles, but for fame and influence,
for the swaying of multitudes, and for that kind of enlarged
and intensified existence “ where breath breathes most —
even in the mouths of men.” Was it so ? In the depths
of Gordon’s soul there were intertwining contradictions
— intricate recesses where egoism and renunciation melted

THE END OF GENERAL GORDON

281

into one another, where the flesh lost itself in the spirit,
and the spirit in the flesh. What was the Will of God ?
The question, which first became insistent during his
retirement at Gravesend, never afterwards left him :
it might almost be said that he spent the remainder of
his life in searching for the answer to it. In all his
Odysseys, in all his strange and agitated adventures,
a day never passed on which he neglected the voice of
eternal wisdom as it spoke through the words of Paul
or Solomon, of Jonah or Habakkuk. He opened his
Bible, he read, and then he noted down his reflections
upon scraps of paper, which, periodically pinned together,
he despatched to one or other of his religious friends,
and particularly his sister Augusta. The published extracts
from these voluminous outpourings lay bare the inner
history of Gordon’s spirit, and reveal the pious visionary
of Gravesend in the restless hero of three continents.

His seclusion came to an end in a distinctly providential
manner. In accordance with a stipulation in the Treaty
of Paris, an international commission had been appointed
to improve the navigation of the Danube ; and Gordon,
who had acted on a similar body fifteen years earlier,
was sent out to represent Great Britain. At Con-
stantinople, he chanced to meet the Egyptian minister,
Nubar Pasha. The Governorship of the Equatorial
Provinces of the Sudan was about to fall vacant ; and
Nubar offered the post to Gordon, who accepted it.
“ For some wise design,” he wrote to his sister, “ God
turns events one way or another, whether man likes it
or not, as a man driving a horse turns it to right or left
without consideration as to whether the horse likes that
way or not. To be happy, a man must be like a well-
broken, willing horse, ready for anything. Events will
go as God likes.”

And then followed six years of extraordinary,
desperate, unceasing, and ungrateful labour. The un-
explored and pestilential region of Equatoria, stretching

282 EMINENT VICTORIANS

southwards to the great lakes and the sources of the
Nile, had been annexed to Egypt by the Khedfve Ismail,
who, while he squandered his millions on Parisian ballet-
dancers, dreamt strange dreams of glory and empire.
Those dim tracts of swamp and forest in Central Africa
were — so he declared — ^to be “ opened up,” they were
to receive the blessings of civilisation, they were to be-
come a source of eternal honour to himself and Egypt.
The slave-trade, which flourished there, was to be put
down ; the savage inhabitants were to become acquainted
with freedom, justice, and prosperity. Incidentally, a
government monopoly in ivory was to be established,
and the place was to be made a paying concern. Ismail,
hopelessly in debt to a horde of European creditors,
looked to Europe to support him in his schemes. Europe,
and, in particular, England, with her passion for extraneous
philanthropy, was not averse. Sir Samuel Baker became
the first Governor of Equatoria, and now Gordon was
to carry on the good work. In such circumstances it
was only natural that Gordon should consider himself
a special instrument in God’s hand. To put his dis-
interestedness beyond doubt, he reduced his salary,
which had been fixed at £10,000, to £2,000. He took over
his new duties early in 1874, and it was not long before
he had a first hint of disillusionment. On his way up
the Nile, he was received in state at Khartoum by the
Egyptian Governor-General of the Sudan, his immediate
official superior. The function ended in a prolonged
banquet, followed by a mixed ballet of soldiers and
completely naked young women, who danced in a circle,
beat time with their feet, and accompanied their, gestures
with a curious sound of clucking. At last the Austrian
Consul, overcome by the exhilaration of the scene, flung
himself in a frenzy among the dancers; the Governor-
General, shouting with delight, seemed about to follow
suit, when Gordon abruptly left the room, apd the party
broke up in confusion.

THE END OF GENERAL GORDON 288

When, fifteen hundred miles to the southward, Gordon
reached the seat of his government, and the desolation
of the Tropics closed over liim, the agonising nature of
his task stood fully revealed. For the next three years
he struggled with enormous diflieultics — with the confused
and horrible country, the appalling climate, the
maddening insects and the loathsome diseases, the in-
difference of subordinates and superiors, the savagery of
the slave-traders, the hatred of the inhabitants. One by
one the small company of his European staff succumbed.
With a few hundred Egyptian soldiers, he had to suppress
insurrections, make roads, establish fortified posts, and
enforce the government monoply of ivory. All this he
accomplished ; he even succeeded in sending enough money
1 o Cairo to pay for the expenses of the expedition. But a
deep gloom had fallen upon his spirit. When, after a
series of incredible obstacles had been overcome, a steamer
was launched upon the tmcxplored Albert Nyanza, he
turned his back upon the lake, leaving the glory of its
navigation to his Italian lieutenant, Gessi. “ I wish,”
he wrote, “ to give a practical proof of what I think
regarding the inordinate praise which is given to^ an
explorer.” Among his distresses and self-mortifications,
he loathed the thought of all such honours, and
remembered the attentions of English society with a
snarl. “ When, D.V., I get home, I do not dine out.
My reminiscences of these lands will not be more pleasant
to me than the China ones. What I shall have done will
be what I have done. Men think giving dinners is con-
ferring a favour on you. . . . Why not give dinners
to those who need them ? ” No 1 His heart was set
upon a very different object. “ To each is allotted a
distinct work, to each a destined goal ; to some the seat
at the right-hand or left of the Saviour. (It was not
His to give; it was already given — ^Matthew xx. 28.
Again, Judas went to “ Am own place ” — Acts i. 25.) It
is difficult to the flesh to accept ‘ Ye are dead, ye have

284

EMINENT VICTORIANS

naught to do with the world.’ How difficult for any one
to be circumcised from the world, to be aS' indifferent
to its pleasures, its sorrows, and its comforts as a corpse
is ! That is to know the resurrection.”

But the Holy Book was not his only solace. For
now, under the parching African sun, wc catch glimpses,
for the first time, of Gordon’s hand stretching out to-
wards stimulants of a more material quality. For months
together, we are told, he would drink nothing but pure
water ; and then . . . water that was not so pure. In
his fits of melancholy, he would shut himself up in his
tent for days at a time, with a hatchet and a flag placed
at the door to indicate that he was not to be distmbed
for any reason whatever ; until at last the cloud would
lift, the signals would be removed, and the Governor would
reappear, brisk and cheerful. During one of these
retirements, there was grave danger of a native attack
upon the camp. Colonel Long, the chief of staff, ventmed,
after some hesitation, to ignore the flag and hatchet,
and to enter the forbidden tent. He found Gordon
seated at a table, upon which were an open Bible and an
open bottle of brandy. Long explained the circum-
stances, but could obtain no answer beyond the abrupt
words — “ You are commander of the camp,” — ^and was
obliged to retire, nonplussed, to deal with the situation
as best he could. On the following morning Gordon,
cleanly shaven, and in the full-dress;, uniform of the Royal
Engineers, entered Long’s hut with his usual tripping step,
exclaiming — “ Old fellow, now don’t be smgry with me.
I was very low last night. Let’s have a good bresikfsust
— a little b. and s. Do you feel up to it ? ” And, with
these veering moods and dangerous restoratives, there
came an intensification of the queer and violent elements
in the temper of the man. His eccentricities grew upon
him. He found it more and more uncomfortable to
follow the ordinary course. Official routine was an
agony to him. His caustic and satirical hiunour expressed

THE END OF GENERAL GORDON

285

itself in a style that astounded government departments.
While he jibed at his superiors, his subordinates learnt
to dread the explosions of his wrath. There were moments
when his passion became utterly imgovernable ; and the
gentle soldier of God, who had spent the day in quoting
texts for the edification of his sister, would slap the face
of his Arab aide-de-camp in a sudden access of fury, or
set upon his Alsatian servant and kick him till he
screamed.

At the end of three years, Gordon resigned his post
in Equatoria, and prepared to return home. But again
Providence intervened : the Khedive offered liim, as an
inducement to remain in the Egyptian service, a position
of still higher consequence — the Governor-Generalship
of the whole Sudan ; and Gordon once more took up
his task. Another three years were passed in grappling
with vast revolting provinces, with the ineradicable
iniquities of the slave-trade, with all the complications
of weakness and corruption incident to an oriental
administration extending over almost boundless tracts
of savage territory which had never been effectively
subdued. His headquarters were fixed in the palace
at Khartoum ; but there were various interludes in his
government. Once, when the Khedive’s finances had
become peculiarly embroiled, he summoned Gordon to
Cairo, to preside over a commission which should set
matters to rights. Gordon accepted the post, but soon
found that his situation was untenable. He was between
the devil and the deep sea — between the unscrupulous
cuiming of the Egyptian Pashas and the immeasurable
immensity of the Khedive’s debts to his European creditors.
The Pashas were anxious to use him as a respectable mask
for their own nefarious dealings ; and the representatives
of the European creditors, who looked upon him as an
irresponsible intruder, were anxious simply to get rid
of him as soon as they could. One of these representa-
tives was Sir Evelyn Baring, whom Gordon now met

286

EMINENT VICTORIANS

for the first time. An immediate antagonism flashed
out between the two men. But their hostility had no
time to mature ; for Gordon, baffled on all sides, and
deserted even by the Khedive, precipitately retmmed
to his Governor-Generalship.' Whatever else Providence
might have decreed, it had certainly not decided that he
should be a financier.

His tastes and his talents were indeed of a very
different kind. In his absence, a rebellion had broken
out in Darfour — one of the vast outlying provinces of
his government — where a native chieftain, Zobeir, had
erected, on a basis of slave-traffic, a dangerous
military power. Zobeir himself had been lured to Cairo,
where he was detained in a state of semi-captivity ; but
his son, Suleiman, ruled in his stead, and was now
defying the Governor-General. Gordon determined upon
a hazardous stroke. He mounted a camel, and rode,
alone, in the blazing heat, across eighty-five miles of desert,
to Suleiman’s camp. His sudden apparition dum-
founded the rebels ; his imperious bearing overawed
them ; he signified to them that in two days they must
disarm and disperse ; and the whole host obeyed.
Gordon returned to Khartoum in triumph. But he had
not heard the last of Suleiman. Flying southwards
from Darfour to the neighbouring province of Bahr-
el-Ghazal, the young man was soon once more at the head
of a formidable force. A prolonged campaign, of extreme
difficulty and danger, followed. Eventually, Gordon, sum-
moned again to Cairo, was obliged to leave to Gessi
the task of finally crushing the revolt. After a
brilliant campaign, Gessi forced Suleiman to surrender,
and then shot him as a rebel. The deed was to exercise
a curious influence upon Gordon’s fate.

Though Suleiman had been killed and his power
broken, the slave-trade still flourished in the Sudan.
Gordon’s efforts to suppress it resembled the palliatives
of an empiric treating the superficial symptoms of some

THE END OF GENERAL GORDON 28 T

profound constitutional disease. The root of the malady
lay in the slave-markets of Cairo and Constantinople :
the supply followed the demand. Gordon, after years
of labour, might here and there stop up a spring or divert
a tributary, but, somehow or other, the waters would
reach the river-bed. In the end, he himself came to
recognise this. “ When you have got the ink that has
soaked into blotting-paper out of it,” he said, “ then
slavery will cease in these lands.” And yet he struggled
desperately on ; it was not for him to murmur. “ I
feel my own weakness, and look to Him who is Almighty,
and I leave the issue without inordinate care to Him.”

Relief came at last. The Khedive Ismail was deposed ;
and Gordon felt at liberty to send in his resignation.
Before he left Egypt, however, he was to experience
yet one more remarkable adventure. At his own request,
he set out on a diplomatic mission to the Negus of
Abyssinia. The mission was a complete failure. The
Negus was intractable, and, when his bribes were refused,
furious. Gordon was ignominiously dismissed ; every
insult was heaped on him ; he was arrested, and obliged
to traverse the Abyssinian Mountains in the depths of
winter under the escort of a savage troop of horse. When,
after great hardships and dangers, he reached Cairo,
he found the whole official world up in arms against him.
The Pashas had determined at last that they had no
further use for this honest and peculiar Englishman.
It was arranged that one of his confidential despatches
should be published in the newspapers ; naturally, it
contained indiscretions ; there was a universal outcry —
the man was insubordinate, and mad. He departed
under a storm of obloquy. It seemed impossible that
he should ever return to Egypt.

On his way home, he stopped in Paris, saw the English
ambassador. Lord Lyons, and speedily came into conflict
with him over i^yptian affairs. There ensued a heated
correspondence, which was finally closed by a letter

288 EMIJIENT VICTORIANS

from Gordon, ending as follows : — “ I have some comfort
in thinking that in ten or fifteen years’ time it will matter
little to either of us. A black box, six feet six by three
feet wide will then contain all that is left of Ambassador,
or Cabinet Minister, or of your humble and obedient
servant.”

He arrived in England early in 1880 ill and exhausted ;
and it might have been supposed that after the terrible
activities of his African exile he would have been ready
to rest. But the very opposite was the case : the next
three years were the most mouvementis of his life. He
hurried from post to post, from enterprise to enterprise,
from continent to continent, with a vertiginous rapidity.
He accepted the Private Secretaryship to Lord Ripon,
the new Viceroy of India, and, three days after his arriv.al
at Bombay, he resigned. He had suddenly realised that he
was not cut out for a Private Secretary, when on an address
being sent in from some deputation, he was asked to say
that the Viceroy had read it with interest. “ You know
perfectly,” he said to Lord William Beresford, “ that
Lord Ripon has never read it, and I can’t say that sort
of thing, so I will resign, and you take in nfiy resignation.”
He confessed to Lord William that the world was not big
enough for him, that there was “ no king or country big
enough ” ; and then he added, hitting him on the shoulder,
“ Yes, that is flesh, that is what I hate, and what makes
me wish to die.”

Two diys later, he was off for Pekin. ‘‘ Every one
will say I am mad,” were his last words to Lord
William Beresford ; “ but you say I am not.” The
position in China was critical ; war with Russia appeared
to be imminent ; and Gordon had been appealed to, in
order to use his influence on the side of peace. He was
welcomed by many old friends of former days, among
them Li Hung Chang, whose diplomatic views coincided
virith his own. Li’s diplomatic language, however, was
less unconventi<mal. In an interview with the Ministers,

rm END OP GENERA GORDON 289

Gordon’s expressions were such that the interpreter
shook with terror, upset a cup of tea, and finally refused
to translate the dreadful words ; upon which Gk)rdon
snatched up a dictionary, and, with his finger on the
word “ idiocy,” showed it to the startled mandarins.
A few weeks later, Li Hung Chang was in power, and peace
was assured. Gordon had spent two and a half days
in Pekin, and was whirling through China, when a tele-
gram arrived from the home authorities, who viewed
his movements with uneasiness, ordering him to return
at once to England. “ It did not produce a twitter in
me,” he wrote to his sister ; “ I died long ago, and it
will not make any difference to me ; I am prepared to
follow the unrolling of the scroll.” The world, perhaps,
was not big enough for him ; and yet how clearly he
recognised that he was “ a poor insect 1 ” “ My heart
tells me that, and I am glad of it.”

On his return to England, he telegraphed to the Govern-
ment of the Cape of Good Hope, which had become
involved in a war with the Basutos, offering his services ;
but his telegram received no reply. Just then. Sir
Howard Elphinstone was appointed to the command of
the Royal Engineers in Mauritius. It was a thankless
and insignificant post ; and, rather than accept it,
Elphinstone was prepared to retire from the army —
unless some other officer could be induced, in return for
£800, to act as his substitute. Gordon, who was an old
friend, agreed to undertake the work — ^upon one condition :
that he should receive nothing from Elphinstone ; and
accordingly he spent the next year in that remote and
unhealthy island, looking after the barrack repairs and
testing ^e drains. While he was thus engaged, the
Cape Government, whose difficulties had been increasing,
change^ its mind, and early in 1882, begged for Gordon’s
help. Once more he was involved in great affairs: a
new field of action opened before him; and then, in a
moment, tha^e was another shift of the kaleidoscope.

240

EMINENT VICTORIANS

and again he was thrown upon the world. Within a
few weeks, after a violent quarrel with the Cape authorities,
his mission had come to an end. What should he do next ?
To what remote corner or what enormous stage, to what
self-sacrificing drudgeries or what resounding exploits,
would the hand of God lead him now ? He waited, in
an odd hesitation. He opened the Bible, but neither
the propheeics of Hosea nor the epistles to Timothy
gave him any advice. The King of the Belgians asked if
he would be willing to go to the Congo. He was perfectly
willing ; he would go whenev er the King of the Belgians
sent for him ; his services, however, were not required
yet. It was at this juncture that he betook himself
to Palestine. His studies there were embodied in a
correspondence with the Rev. Mr, Barnes, filling over
two thousand pages of manuscript — a correspondence
which was only put an end to when, at last, the summons
from the King of the Belgians came. He hurried back to
England ; but it was not to the Congo that he was being
led by the hand of God.

Gordon’s last great adventure, like his first, was
occasioned by a religious revolt. At the very moment
when, apparently for ever, he was shaking the dust of
Egypt from his feet, Mahommed Ahmed was starting
upon his extraordinary career in the Sudan. The time
was propitious for revolutions. The effete Egyptian
Empire was hovering upon the verge of collapse. The
enormous territories of the Sudan were seething with
discontent. Gordon’s administration had, by its very
vigour, only helped to precipitate the inevitable disaster.
His attacks upon the slave-trade, his establishment of
a government monopoly in ivory, his hostility to the
Egyptian officials, had been so many shocks, shaking
to its foundations the whole rickety machine. The
result of all his efforts had been, on the one hand, to

THE END OF GENERAL GORDON

241

fill the most powerful classes in the community — ^the
dealers in slaves and ivory — ^with a hatred of the govern-
ment, and on the other to awaken among the mass of
the inhabitants a new perception of the dishonesty and
incompetence of their Egyptian masters. When, after
Gordon’s removal, the rule of the Pashas once more
asserted itself over the Sudan, a general combustion
became inevitable : the first spark would set off the
blaze. Just then it happened that Mahonuned Ahmed,
the son of an insignificant priest in Dongola, having
quarrelled with the Sheikh from whom he was receiving
religious instruction, set up as an independent preacher,
with his headquarters at Abba Island, on the Nile, a
hundred and fifty miles above Khartoum. Like Hong-
siu-tsuen, he began as a religious reformer, and ended
as a rebel king. It was his mission, he declared, to purge
the true Faith of its worldliness and corruptions, to lead
the followers of the Prophet into the paths of chastity,
simplicity, and holiness ; with the puritanical zeal of a
Calvin, ' he denounced jun^tings and merrymakings,
songs and dances, lewd living and all the delights of the
flesh. He fell into trances, he saw visions, he saw the
Prophet and Jesus, and the Angel Izrail accompanying
him and watching over him for ever. He prophesied,
and performed miracles, and his fame spread through
the land.

There is an ancient tradition in the Mahommedan
world, telling of a mysterious being, the last in succession
of the twelve holy Imams, who, untouched by death
and withdrawn into the recesses of a mountain, was
destined, at the appointed hour, to come forth again
among men. His title was the Mahdi, the guide ; some
believed that he would be the forerunner of the Messiah ;
others that he would be Christ himself. Abeady various
Mahdis had made their appearance ; several had been
highly successful, and two, in mediaeval times, had
founded djmasties in Egypt. But who could tell whether

B

242

EMINENT VICTORIANS

all these were not impostors ? Might not the twelfth
Imam be still waiting, in mystical concealment, ready
to emerge, at any moment, at the bidding of God ? There
were signs by which the true Mahdi might be recognised
— ^unmistakable signs, if one could but read them aright.
He must be of the family of the prophet ; he must possess
miraculous powers of no common kind ; and his person
must be overflowing with a peculiar sanctity. The
pious dwellers beside those distant waters, where holy
men by dint of a constant repetition of one of the ninety-
nine names of God, secured the protection of guardian
angels, and where groups of devotees, shaking their
heads with a violence which would unseat the reason
of less athletic worshippers, attained to an extraordinary
beatitude, heard with awe of the young preacher whose
saintliness was almost more than mortal and whose
miracles brought amazement to the mind. Was he not
also of the family of the prophet ? He himself had said
so ; and who would disbelieve the holy man ? When
he appeared in person, every doubt was swept away.
There was a strange splendour in his presence, an over-
jjowering passion in the torrent of his speech. Great
was the wickedness of the people, and great was their
punishment ! Surely their miseries were a visible sign
of the wrath of the Lord. They had sinned, and
the cruel tax-gatherers had come among them, and the
corrupt governors, and all the oppressions of the
Egyptians. Yet these things, too, should have an end.
The Lord woxild raise up his chosen deliverer : the hearts
of the people would be purified, and their enemies would
be laid low. The accursed Egyptian would be driven
from the land. Let the faithful take heart and make
ready. How soon might not the long-predestined hour
strike, when the twelfth Imam, the guide, the 'Mahdi,
would reveal himself to the World ? In that hour, the
righteous would triumph and the guilty be laid low for
ever. Such was the teaching of Mahommed Ah|ne(|t

THE END OF GENEBAL GORDON 248

A band of enthusiastic disciples gathered round him, eagerly
waiting for the revelation which would crown their hopes.
At last, the moment came. One evening, at Abba Island,
taking aside the foremost of his followers, the Master
whispered the portentous news. He was the Mahdi.

The Egyptian Governor-General at IGiartoum, hearing
that a religious movement was on foot, grew disquieted,
and despatched an emissary to Abba Island to sununon
the impostor to his presence. The emissary was
courteously received. Mahommed Ahmed, he said, must
come at once to Khartoum. “ Must 1 ” exclaimed the
Mahdi, starting to his feet, with a strange look in his eyes.
The look was so strange that the emissary thought it
advisable to cut short the interview and to return to
Khartoum empty-handed. Thereupon the Governor-
General sent two hundred soldiers to seize the audacious
rebel by force. With his handful of friends, the Mahdi
fell upon the soldiers and cut them to pieces. The news
spread like wild-fire through the country: the Madhi
had arisen, the Egyptians were destroyed. But it was
clear to the little band of enthusiasts at Abba Island that
their position on the river was no longer tenable. The
Mahdi, deciding upon a second Hegira, retreated south-
westward, into the depths of Kordofan.

The retreat was a triumphal progress. The country,
groaning under alien misgovermnent and vibrating with
religious excitement, suddenly found in this rebellious
prophet a rallying point, a hero, a deliverer. And now
another element was added to the forces of insurrection.
The Baggara tribes of Kordofan, cattle-owners and slave-
traders, the most warlike and vigorous of the inhabitants
of the Sudan, threw in their lot with the Mahdi. Their
powerful emirs, still smarting from the blows of Gordon,
saw that the opportunity for revenge had come. A holy
war was proclaimed against the Egyptian misbelievers.
The followers of the Mahdi, dressed, in token of a new
austerity of living, in the “jibbeh,” or white smock of

244 EMINENT VICTORIANS

coarse cloth, patched with variously shaped and coloured
patches, were rapidly organised into a formidable army.
Several attacks from Khartoum were repulsed ; and at
last the Mahdi felt strong enough to advance against the
enemy. While his hcutenants led detachments into the
vast provinces lying to the west and the south — Darfour
and Bahr-el-Ghazal — he himself marched upon El Obeid,
the capital of Kordofan. It was in vain that reinforce-
ments were hurried from Khartoum to the assistance of
the garrison : there was some severe fighting ; the town
was completely cut off ; and, after a six months’ siege,
it surrendered. A great quantity of guns and
ammunition and £100,000 in specie fell into the hands of
the Mahdi. He was master of Kordofan ; he was at the
head of a great army ; he was rich ; he was w'orshipped.
A dazzling future opened before him. No possibility
seemed too remote, no fortune too magnificent. A vision
of universal empire hovered before his eyes. Allah,
whose servant he was, who had led him thus far, would
lead him onward still, to the glorious end.

For some months he remained at El Obeid, consoli-
dating his dominion. In a series of circular letters, he
described his colloquies with the Almighty and laid
down the rule of living which his followers were to pursue.
The faithful, under pain of severe punishment, were to
return to the ascetic simpheity of ancient times. A
criminal code was drawn up, meting out executions,
mutilations, and floggings with a barbaric zeal. The
blasphemer was to be instantly hanged, the adulterer
was to be scourged with whips of rhinoceros hide, the
thief was to have his right hand and his left foot hacked
off in the market-place. No more were marriages to be
celebrated with pomp and feasting, no more was the
youthful warrior to swagger with flowing hair; hence-
forth the believer must banquet on dates and milk, and
his head must be kept shaved. Minor transgressions were
punished by confiscation of property, or by imprisonment

TIIK END OF GENERAL GORDON

243

and chains. But the rhinoceros whip was the favourite
instrument of chastisement. Men were flogged for
drinking a glass of wine, they were flogged for smoking ;
if they swore, they received eighty lashes for every
expletive ; and after eighty lashes it was a common thing
to die. Before long, flogging grew to be so everyday an
incident that the young men made a game of it, as a test
of their endurance of pain. With this Spartan ferocity
there was mingled the glamour and the mystery of the
East. The Mahdi himself, his four Khalifas, and the
principal emirs, masters of sudden riches, surrounded
themselves with slaves and women, with trains of horses
and asses, with bodyguards and glittering arms. There
were rumoiu's of debaucheries in high places ; of the Mahdi,
forgetful of his own ordinances, revelling in the recesses
of his harem, and quaffing date syrup mixed with ginger
out of the silver cups looted from the church of
the Christians. But that imposing figure had only to
show itself for the tongue of scandal to be stilled. The
tall, broad-shouldered, majestic man, with the dark face
and black beard and great eyes — who could doubt that
he was the embodiment of a superhuman power ?
Fascination dwelt in every movement, eveiy glance.
The eyes, painted with antimony, flashed extraordinary
fires ; the exquisite smile revealed, beneath the vigorous
lips, white upper -teeth with a V-shaped space between
them — ^the certain sign of fortune. His turban was
folded with faultless art, his jibbeh, speckless, was per-
fumed with sandal-wood, musk, and attar of roses. He
was at once all courtesy and all command. Thousands
followed him, thousands prostrated themselves before
him ; thousands, when he lifted up his voice in solemn
worship, knew that the heavens were opened and that
they had come near to God. Then all at once the onbeia
— ^the elephant’s tusk trumpet — ^would give out its enor-
mous sound. The nahas — ^the brazen war-drums — ^would
summon, with their weird rolling, the whole host to arms.

246

EMINENl' VICTORIANS

The green flag and the red flag and the black flag
would rise over the multitude. The great army would
move forward, coloured, glistening, dark, violent, proud,
beautiful. The drunkenness, the madness, of religion
would blaze on every face ; and the Mahdi, immovable
on his charger, would let the scene grow tmder his eyes
in silence.

El Obeid fell in January, 1888. Meanwhile events
of the deepest importance had occurred in Egypt. The
rise of Ardbi had synchronised with that of the Mahdi.
Both movements were nationalist ; both were directed
against alien rulers who had shown themselves unfit to
rule. While the Sudanese were shaking off the yoke
of Egypt, the Egyptians themselves grew impatient of
their own masters — the Turkish and Circassian Pashas
who filled with their incompetence all the high offices
of state. The army, led by Ahmed ArAbi, a Colonel
of fellah origin, mutinied, the Khedive gave way, and it
seemed as if a new order were about to be established.
A new order was indeed upon the point of appearing ;
but it was of a kind undreamt of in ArAbi’s philosophy.
At the critical moment, the English Government inter-
vened. An English fleet bombarded Alexandria, an
English army landed under Lord Wolseley and defeated
Ar^bi and Ws supporters at Tel-el-kebir. The rule of
the Pashas was nominally restored ; but henceforth,
in effect, the English were masters of Egypt.

Nevertheless, the English themselves were slow to
recognise this fact. Their government had intervened
unwillingly ; the occupation of the country was a merely
temporary measure; their army was to be withdrawn
so soon as a tolerable administration had been set up.
’But a tolerable administration, presided over by the
Pashas, seemed long in coming, and the English army
remained. In the meantime the Mahdi had entered
El Obeid, and his dominion was rapidly spreading over
the greater part of the Sudan.

THE END OF GENERAL GORDON 247

Then a terrible catastrophe took place. The Pashas,
happy once more in Cairo, pulling the old strings and
growing fat over the ol^ flesh-pots, decided to give the
world an unmistakable proof of their renewed vigour.
They would tolerate the insurrection in the Sudan no
longer ; they would destroy the Mahdi, reduce his
followers to submission, and re-establish their own bene-
ficent rule over the whole country. To this end they
collected together an army of ten thousand men, and
placed it under the command of Colonel Hicks, a retired
English officer. He was ordered to advance and suppress
the rebellion. In these proceedings the English Govern-
ment refused to take any part. Unable, or unwilling,
to realise that, so long as there was an English army in
Egypt, they could not avoid the responsibilities of supreme
power, they declared that the domestic policy of the
Egyptian administration was no concern of theirs. It
was a fatal error — an error which they themselves, before
many weeks were over, were to be forced by the hard
logic of events to admit. The Pashas, left to their own
devices, mismanaged the Hicks expedition to their hearts’
content. The mi serable troops, swept together from
the relics of Ardbi’s disbanded army, were despatched
to Khartoum in chains. After a month’s drilling they
were pronounced to be fit to attack the fanatics of the
Sudan. Colonel Hicks was a brave man ; urged on by
the authorities in Cairo, he shut his eyes to the danger
ahead of him, and marched out from Khartoum in the
direction of El Obeid at the beginning of September.
1888. Abandoning his communications, he was soon
deep in the desolate wastes of Kordofan. As he advanced,
his difficulties increased ; the guides were treacherous,
the troops grew exhausted, the supply of water gave out.
He pressed on, and at last, on November 5th, not far
from El Obeid, the harassed, fainting, almost desperate
army plunged into a vast forest of gum-trees and mimosa
Bomb. There was a sudden, an appalling yell; the

248 EMINENT VICTORIANS

Mahdi, with forty thousand of his finest men, sprang
from their ambush. The Egyptians were surrounded,
and immediately overpowered. It was not a defeat,
but an annihilation. Hicks and his European staff were
slaughtered ; the whole army was slaughtered ; three
hundred wounded wretches crept away into the forest
alive.

The consequences of this event were felt in every
part of the Sudan. To the westward, in Darfour, the
Governor, Slatin Pasha, after a prolonged and valiant
resistance, was forced to surrender, and the whole pro-
vince fell into the hands of the rebels. Southwards,
in the Bahr-cl-Ghazal, Lupton Bey was shut up in a
remote stronghold, while the country was over-run.
The Mahdi’s triumphs were beginning to penetrate even
into the tropical regions of Equatoria ; the tribes were
rising, and Emin Pasha was preparing to retreat towards
the Great Lakes. On the East, Osman Digna pushed
the insurrection right up to the shores of the Red Sea,
and laid siege to Suakin. Before the year was over,
with the exception ' of a few isolated and surrounded
garrisons, the Mahdi was absolute lord of a territory equal
to the combined area of Spain, France, and Germany ;
and his victorious armies were rapidly closing round
Khartoum.

When the news of the Hicks disaster reached Cairo,
the Pashas calnJy announced that they would collect
another army of ten thousand men, and again attack the
Mahdi; but the English Government understood at last
the gravity of the case. They saw that a crisis was upon
them, and that they could no longer escape the implica-
tions of their position in Egypt. What were they to do ?
Were they to allow the. Egyptians to become more and
more deeply involved in a ruinous, perhaps ultimately
a fatal, war with the Mahdi ? And, if not, what steps
were they to take ? A small minority of the party then
in power in England — the Liberal Party — ^were anxious

THE END OF GENERA!. GORDON

249

to withdraw from Egypt altogether and at once. On
the other hand, another pnd a naore influential minority,
with representatives in the Cabinet, were in favour of
a more active intervention in Egyptian affairs — of the
deliberate use of the power of England to give to Egypt
internal stability and external security ; they were ready,
if necessary, to take the field against the Mahdi with
English troops. But the great bulk of the party, and
the Cabinet, with Mr. Gladstone at their head, preferred
a middle course. Realising the impracticability of an
immediate withdrawal, they were nevertheless deter-
mined to remain in Egypt not a moment longer than
was necessary, and, in the meantime, to interfere as
little as possible in Egyptian affairs. From a campaign
in the Sudan conducted by an English army they were
altogether averse. If, therefore, the English army was
not to be used, and the Egyptian army was not fit to
be used, against the Mahdi, it followed that any attempt
to reconquer the Sudan must be abandoned ; the
remaining Eg3rptian troops must be withdrawn, and
in future military operations must be limited to those
of a strictly defensive kind. Such was the decision
of the English Government. Their determination was
strengthened by two considerations : in the first place,
they saw that the Mahdi’s rebellion was largely a
nationalist movement, directed against an alien power,
and, in the second place, the policy of withdrawal from
the Sudan was the policy of their own representative
in Egypt, Sir Evelyn Baring, who had lately been appointed
Consul-General at Cairo. There was only one serious
obstacle in the way — ^the attitude of the Pashas at the
head of the Egyptian Government. The infatuated old
men were convinced that they would have better luck
next time, that another army and another Hicks would
certainly destroy the Mahdi, and that, even if the Mahdi
were again victorious, yet another army and yet another
Hicks would no doubt be forthcoming, and that

250

EMINENT VICTORIANS

would do the trick, or, failing that . . . but they refused
to consider eventualities any further. In the face of such
opposition, the EngUsh Government, unwilling as they
were to interfere, saw that there was no choice open to
them but to exercise pressure. They therefore instructed
Sir Evelyn Baring, in the event of the Egyptian Govern-
ment refusing to withdraw from the Sudan, to insist
upon the Khedive’s appointing other Ministers who would
be willing to do so.

Meanwhile, not only the Govenunent, but the public
in England were beginning to realise the alarming nature
of the Egyptian situation. It was some time before the
details of the Hicks expedition were fully known, but
when they were, and when the appalling character of
the disaster was understood, a thrill of horror ran through
the country. The newspapers became full of articles
on the Sudan, of personal descriptions of the Mahdi,
of agitated letters from Colonels and clergymen demanding
vengeance, and of serious discussions of future policy
in Egypt. Then, at the beginning of the new year,
alarming messages began to arrive from Khartoum.
Colonel Coetlogon, who was in command of the Egyptian
troops, reported a menacing concentration of the enemy.
Day by day, hour by hour, affairs grew worse. The
Egyptians were obviously outnumbered ; they could
not maintain themselves in the field; Khartoum was
in danger ; at any moment, its investment xnight be
complete. And, with Khartoum once cut off from com-
munication with Egj^t, what might not happen ? Colonel
Coetlogon began to calculate how long the city would
hold out. Perhaps it could not resist the Mahdi for
a month, perhaps for more than a month ; but he began
to talk of the necessity of a speedy retreat. It was clear
that a climax was approaching, and that measiures must
be taken to farestall it at once. Accordingly, Sir Evelyn
Baring, on receipt of final orders from England, presented
an ultimatum to the Egyptian Government : the

THE END OF GENERAL GORDON 251

Ministry must either sanction the evacuation of the Sudan,
or it must resign. The Ministry was obstinate, and,
on January 7th 1884, it resigned, to be replaced by a
more pliable body of Pashas. On the same day. General
Gordon arrived at Southampton.

He was over fifty, and he was still, by the world’s
measurements, an unimportant man. In spite of his
achievements, in spite of a certain celebrity — ^for
“ Chinese Gordon ” was still occasionally spoken of —
he was unrecognised and almost unemployed. He had
spent a life-time in the dubious services of foreign Govern-
ments, punctuated by futile drudgeries at home ; and
now, after a long idleness, he had been sent for — ^to do
what ? — ^to look after the Congo for the King of the
Belgians. At his age, even if he survived the work and
the climate, he could hardly look forward to any subse-
quent appointment ; he would return from the Congo,
old and worn out, to a red-brick villa and extinction.
Such were General Gordon’s prospects on January 7th,
1884. By January 18th, his name was on every tongue,
he was the favourite of the nation, he had been declared
to be the one man living capable of coping with the
perils of the hour, he had been chosen, with tmanimous
approval, to perform a great task, and he had left England
on a mission which was to bring him not only a bound-
less popularity but an immortal fame. The circum-
stances which led to a change so sudden and so remarkable
are less easily explained than might have been wished.
An ambiguity hangs over them — an ambiguity which the
discretion of eminent persons has certainly not diminished.
But some of the facts are clear enough.

The decision to withdraw from the Sudan had no
sooner been taken than it had become evident that the
operation would be a difficult and hazardous one, and
that it would be necessary to send to Khartoum an
emissary armed with special powers and possessed of
special ability, to carry it out. Towards the end ol

252

EMINENT VICTORIANS

November, somebody at the War OflTice — it is not elear
who — ^had suggested that this emissary should be General
Gordon. Lord Granville, the Foreign Secretary, had
thereupon telegraphed to Sir Evelyn Baring asking
whether, in his opinion, the presence of General Gordon
would be useful in Egypt ; Sir Evelyn Baring had replied
that the Egyptian Government were averse to this pro-
posal, and the matter had dropped. There was no further
reference to Gordon in the official despatches until
after his return to England. Nor, before that date,
was any allusion made to him, as a possible unravcller
of the Sudan difficulty, in the Press. In all the dis-
cussions which followed the news of the Hicks disaster,
his name is only to be found in occasional and incidental
references to his work in the Sudan. The Pall Mall
Gazette, which, more than any other newspaper, interested
itself in Egyptian affairs, alluded to Gordon once or twice
as a geographical expert ; but, in an enumeration of
the leading authorities on the Sudan, left him out of
account altogether. Yet it was from the Pall Mall
Gazette that the impulsion which projected him into a
blaze of publicity finally came. Mr. Stead, its enter-
prising editor, went down to Southampton the day after
Gordon’s arrival there, and obtained an interview. Now
when he was in the mood — after a little b. and s., especially
— ^no one was more capable than Gordon, with his facile
speech and his free-and-easy manners, of furnishing good
copy for a journalist ; and Mr. Stead made the most
of his opportunity. The interview, copious and pointed,
was published next day in the most prominent part of
the paper, together with a leading article, demanding
that the General should be immediately despatched to
Khartoum with the widest powers. The rest of the Press,
both in London and in the provinces, at once took up
the cry. General Gordon was a capable and energetic
officer, he was a noble and God-fearing man, he was a
national asset, he was a statesman in the highest sense

THE END OF GENERAL GORDON

258

of the word ; the oceasion was pressing and perilous ;
General Gordon had been for years Governor-General
of the Sudan ; General Gordon alone had the knowledge,
the courage, the virtue, which would save the situation ;
General Gordon must go to Khartoum. So, for a week,
the papers sang in chorus. But already those in high
j)laces had taken a step. Mr. Stead’s interview appeared
on the afternoon of January 9th, and on the morning
of January 10th Lord Granville telegraphed to Sir
Evelyn Baring, proposing, for a second time, that
Gordon’s services should be utilised in Egypt. But
Sir Evelyn Baring, for the second time, rejected the
proposal.

While these messages were flashing to and fro, Gordon
himself was paying a visit to the Rev. Mr. Barnes at the
Vicarage of Heavitrec, near Exeter. The conversation
ran chiefly on Biblical and spiritual matters — on the
light thrown by the Old Testament upon the geography
of Palestine, and on the relations between man and his
Maker ; but there were moments when topics of a more
worldly interest arose. It happened that Sir Samuel
Baker, Gordon’s predecessor in Equatoria, lived in the
neighbourhood. A meeting was arranged, and the two
ex-Govemors, with Mr. Barnes in attendance, went for
a drive together. In the carriage. Sir Samuel Baker,
taking up the tale of the Pall Mall Gazette, dilated upon
the necessity of his friend’s returning to the Sudan as
Governor-General. Gordon was silent ; but Mr. Barnes
noticed that his blue eyes flashed, while an eager
expression passed over his face. Late that night, after
the Vicar had retired to bed, he was surprised by the
door suddenly opening, and by the appearance of his
guest swiftly tripping into the room. “You saw me
to-day ? ’’ the low voice abruptly questioned. — “ You
mean in the carriage ? ’’ replied the startled Mr. Barnes.
— “ Yes,’’ came the reply ; “ you saw me — ^that was
myself— the self I want to get rid of.’’ There was a

254

EMINENT VICTORIANS

sliding movement, the door swung to, and the Vicar
found himself alone again.

It was clear that a disturbing influence had found
its way into Gk>rdon’s mind. His thoughts, wandering
through Africa, flitted to the Sudan ; they did not
linger at the Congo. During the same visit, he took
the opportunity of calling upon Dr. Temple, the Bishop
of Exeter, and asking him, merely as a hypothetical
question, whether, in his opinion, Sudanese converts
to Christianity might be permitted to keep three wives.
His Lordship answered that this would be uncanonical.

A few days later, it appeared that the conversa-
tion in the carriage at Heavitree had borne fruit.
Gordon wrote a letter to Sir Samuel Baker, further
elaborating the opinions on the Sudan which he had
already expressed in his interview with Mr. Stead ; the
letter was clearly intended for publication, and published
it was, in the Times of January 14th. On the same day,
Gordon’s name began once more to buzz along the wires
in secret questions and answers to and from the highest
quarters.

“ Might it not be advisable,” telegraphed Lord
Granville to Mr. Gladstone, “ to put a little pressure
on Baring, to induce him to accept the assistance of
General Gordon ? ” Mr. Gladstone replied, also by a
telegram, in the affirmative ; and on the 15th Lord Wolseley
tiidegraphed to Gordon begging him to come to London
immediately. Lord Wolseley, who was one of Gordon’s
oldest friends, was at that time Adjutant-General of the
Forces ; there was a long interview ; and, though the
details of the conversation have never transpired, it is
known that, in the course of it, Lord Wolseley asked Gordon
if he would be willing to go to the Sudan, to which Gordon
replied that there was only one objection — ^liis prior
eugagement to the King of the Belgians. Before night-
fall, Lord Granville, by private telegram, had “ put a
little pressure on Baring.” “ He had,” he said, “ heard

THE END OF GENEHAL 60BD0N 255

indirectly that Gordon was ready fb fo at once to the
Sudan on the following rather vag|te terms. His mission
to be to report to Her Majesty’s Government on the
military situation, and to retimn without any further
engagement. He would be under you for instructions
and will send letters through you under flying seal. . . .
He might be of use,” Lord Granville added, “ in informing
you and us of the situation. It would be popular at
home, but there may be countervailing objections. Tell
me,” such was Lord Granville’s concluding injunction,
“ yoTir real opinion.” It was the third time of asking,
and Sir Evelyn Baring resisted ho longer. “ Gordon,”
he telegraphed on the 16th, “ would be the best man if
he will pledge himself to carry out the policy of with-
drawing from the Sudan as quickly as is possible con-
sistently with saving life. He must also understand that
he must take his instructions from the British representa-
tive in Egypt. ... I would rather have him than any one
else, provided there is a perfectly clear understanding
with him as to what his position is to be and what line
of policy he is to carry out. Otherwise, not. . . . Who-
ever goes should be distinctly warned that he will under-
take a service of great difficulty and danger.” In the
meantime, Gordon, with the Sudan upon his lips, with
the Sudan in his imagination, had hurried to Brussels,
to obtain -from the King of the Belgians a reluctant con-
sent to the postponement of his Congo mission. On
the 17th he was recalled to London by a telegram from
Lord Wolseley. On the 18th the final decision was
made. “ At noon,” Gordon told the Rev. Mr. Barnes,
“ Wolseley came to me and took me to the Ministers.
He went in and talked to the Ministers, and came back
and said : ‘ Her Majesty’s Government want you to
undertake this. Government are determined to evacuate
the Sudan, for they will not guarantee future govern-
ment. Will you go and do it ? ’ I said ; ‘ Yes.’ He said :
‘ Go in.’ 1 went in and saw them. They said : * Did

256

EMINENT VICTORIANS

Wolseley tell you your orders ? ’ I said : ‘ Yes.’ I said :
‘ You will not guarantee future government of the Sudan,
and you wish me to go up and evacuate now'.’ They
said : ‘ Yes,’ and it was over.”

Such was the sequence of events which ended in
General Gordon’s last appomtment. The precise motives
of those responsible for these transactions are less easy
to discern. It is difficult to understand what the reasons
could have been which induced the Government, not
only to override the hesitations of Sir Evelyn Baring,
but to overlook the grave and obvious dangers involved
in sending such a man as Gordon to the Sudan. The
whole history of his life, the whole bent of his character,
seemed- to disqualify him for the task for which he had
been chosen. He was before all things a fighter, an
enthusiast, a bold adventurer ; and he was now to be
entrusted with the conduct of an inglorious retreat.
He w'as alien to the subtleties of civilised statesman-
ship, he was rmamenable to official control, he was
incapable of ‘ the skilful management of delicate
situations ; and he was now to be placed in a position
of great complexity, requiring at once a cool judgment,
a clear perception of fact, and a fixed determination
to carry out a line of policy laid down from above. He
had, it is true, been Governor-General of the Sudan ;
but he was now to return to the scene of his greatness
as the emissary of a defeated and humbled power; he
was to be a fugitive where he had once been a ruler ;
the very success of his mission was to consist in establishing
the triumph of those forces which he had spent years
in trampling under foot. All this should have been clear
to those in authority, after a very little reflection. It
was clear enough to Sir Evelyn Baring, though, with
characteristic reticence, he had abstained from giving
expression to his thoughts. But, even if a general
acquaintance with Gordon’s life and character were not
sufficient to lead to these conclusions, he himself had

THE END OF GENERAL GORDON

257

taken care to put their validity beyond reasonable doubt.
Both in his interview with Mr. Stead and in his letter to
Sir Samuel Baker, he had indicated unmistakably his
own attitude towards the Sudan situation. The policy
which he advocated, the state of feeling in which he showed
Iiimself to be, were diametrically opposed to the declared
intentions of the Government. He was by no means
in favour of withdrawing from the Sudan : he was in
favour, as might have been supposed, of vigorous military
action. It might be necessary to abandon, for the time
being, the more remote garrisons in Darfour and
Equatoria ; but Khartoum must be held at all costs.
To allow the Mahdi to enter Khartoum would not merely
mean the return of the whole of the Sudan to barbarism,
it would be a menace to the safety of Egypt herself. To
attempt to proteet Egypt against the Mahdi by forti-
fying her southern frontier was preposterous. “ You
might as well fortify against a fever.’’ Arabia, Syria,
the whole Mohammedan world, would be shaken by the
Mahdi’s advance. “ In self-defence,” Gordon declared
to Mr. Stead, “ the policy of evacuation cannot possibly
be justified.” The true policy was obvious. A strong
man — Sir Samuel Baker, perhaps — ^must be sent to
Khartoum, with a large contingent of Indian and Turkish
troops and with two millions of money. He would very
soon overpower the Mahdi, whose forces would “ fall to
pieces of themselves.” For in Gordon’s opinion it was
an entire mistake to regard the Mahdi as in any sense
a religious leader ” ; he would collapse as soon as he
was face to face with an English general. Then the
distant regions of Darfour and Equatoria could once more
be occupied ; their original Sultans could be reinstated ;
the whole country would be placed under civilised rule ;
and the slave-trade would be finally abolished. These
were the views which Gordon publicly expressed on
January 9th and on January 14th ; and it certainly
seems strange that on January 10th and on January 14th,

s

258 EMINENT VICTORIANS

Lord Granville should have proposed, without a word
of consultation with Gordon himself, to send him on a
mission which involved, not the reconquest, but the
abandonment, of the Sudan. Gordon, indeed, when
he was actually approached by Lord Wolseley, had
apparently agreed to become the agent of a policy which
was exactly the reverse of his own. No doubt, too, it
is possible for a subordinate to suppress his private con-
victions and to carry out loyally, in spite of them, the
orders of his superiors. But how rare are the qualities
of self-control and wisdom which such a subordinate
must possess 1 And how little reason there was to think
that General Gordon possessed them !

In fact, the conduct of the Government wears so
singular an appearance that it has seemed necessary
to account for it by some ulterior explanation. It has
often been asserted that the true’ cause of Gordon’s
appointment was the clamour in the Press. It is said
— ^among others, by Sir Evelyn Baring himself, who has
given something like an ofiScial sanction to this view
of the case — ^that the Government could not resist the
pressure of the newspapers and the feeling in the country
which it indicated ; that Ministers, carried off their
feet by a wave of “ Gordon cultus,” were obliged to give
way to the inevitable. But this suggestion is hardly
supported by an examination of the facts. Already,
early in December, and many weeks before Gordon’s
name had begun to figure in the newspapers, Lord
Granville had made his first effort to induce Sir Evelyn
Baring to accept Gordon’s services. The first news-
paper demand for a Gordon noission appeared in the
PaU Mail Gazette on the afternoon of January 9th ; and
the very next morning Lord Granville was making his
second telegraphic attack upon Sir Evelyn Baring. The
feeling in the Press did not become general until the
11th, and on the 14th Lord Granville, in his telegram to
Mr. Gladstone, for the third time proposed the appointment

THE END OF GENERAL GORDON 259

of Gordon. Clearly, on the part of Lord Granville at
any rate, there was no extreme desire to resist the wishes
of the Press. Nor was the Government as a whole by
any means incapable of ignoring public opinion : a few
months were to show that, plainly enough. It is difficult
to avoid the conclusion that if Ministers had been opposed
to the appointment of Gordon, he would never have
been appointed. As it was, the newspapers were in
fact forestalled, rather than followed, by the
Government.

How, then, are we to explain the Goveriunent’s
action ? Are we to suppose that its members, like the
members of the public at large, were themselves carried
away by a sudden enthusiasm, a sudden conviction that
they had found their saviour, that General Gordon was
the man — ^they did not quite know why, but that was
of no consequence — ^the one man to get them out of the
whole Sudan difficulty — ^they did not quite know how,
but that was of no consequence either — ^if only he were
sent to Khartoum ? Doubtless even Cabinet Ministers
are liable to such impulses ; doubtless it is possible that
the Cabinet of that day allowed itself to drift, out of
mere lack of consideration, and judgment, and foresight,
along the rapid stream of popular feeling towards the
inevitable cataract. That may be so; yet there are
indications that a more definite influence was at work.
There was a section of the Government which had never
become quite reconciled to the policy of withdrawing
from the Sudan. To this section — we may call it the
imperialist section — ^which was led, inside the Cabinet,
by Lord Hartington, and outside by Lord Wolseley,
the policy which really commended itself was the very
policy wMch had been outlined by General Gordon in
his interview with Mr. Stead and his letter to Sir Samuel
Baker. They saw that it might be necessary to abandon
some of the outlying parts of the Sudan to the Bfahdi ;
but the prospect of leaving the whole province in his

260

EMINENT VICTORIANS

hands was highly distasteful to them ; above all, they
dreaded the loss of Khartoum. Now, supposing that
General Gordon, in response to a popular agitation in
the Press, were sent to Khartomn, what would follow ?
Was it not at least possible that, once there, with his
views and his character, he would, for some reason or
other, refrain from carrying out a policy of pacific retreat ?
Was it not possible that in that case he might so involve
the English Government that it would find itself obliged,
almost imperceptibly perhaps, to substitute for its policy
of withdrawal a policy of advance ? Was it not possible
that General Gordon might get into difficulties, that he
might be surrounded and cut off from Egypt ? If that
were to happen, how could the English Government avoid
the necessity of sending an expedition to rescue him ?
And, if an English expedition went to the Sudan, was
it conceivable that it would leave the Mahdi as it found
him ? In short, would not the despatch of General
Gordon to Khartoum involve, almost inevitably, the
conquest of the Sudan by British troops, followed by
a British occupation ? And, behind all these questions,
a still larger question loomed. The position of the English
in Egypt itself was still ambiguous ; the future was obscure ;
how long, in reality, would an English army remain in
Eg3rpt ? Was not one thing, at least, obvious — ^that if
the English were to conquer and occupy the Sudan, their
evacuation of Egypt would become impossible ?

With oiu* present information, it would be rash to
affirm that all, or any, of these considerations were
present to the minds of the imperialist section of the
Grovernment. Yet it is difficult to believe that a man
such as Lord Wolseley, for instance, with his knowledge
of affairs and his knowledge of Gordon, could have alto-
gether overlooked them. Lord Hartington, indeed, may
well have failed to realise at once the implications of
General Gordon’s appointment — ^for it took Lord Hart-
ington some time to realise the implications of .anything ;

THE END OP GENERAL GORDON 261

but Lord Hartington was very far from being a fool ;
and we may well suppose that he instinctively, perhaps
subconsciously, apprehended the elements of a situation
which he never formulated to himself. However that
may be, certain circumstances are significant. It is
significant that the go-between who acted as the Govern-
ment’s agent in its negotiations with Gordon was an
imperialist — ^Lord Wolseley. It is significant that the
“ Ministers ” whom Gordon finally intervicAved, and who
actually determined his appointment, were by no means
the whole of the Cabinet, but a small section of it, presided
over by Lord Hartington. It is significant, too, that
Gordon’s mission was represented both to Sir Evelyn
Baring, who was opposed to his appointment, and to Mr.
Gladstone, who was opposed to an active policy in the
Sudan, as a mission merely “ to report ” ; while, no
sooner was the mission actually decided upon, than it began
to assume a very different complexion. In his final inter-
view with the “ Ministers,” Gordon, we know (though he
said nothing about it to the Rev. Mr. Barnes), threw out
the suggestion that it might be as well to make him the
Governor-General of the Sudan. The suggestion, for
the moment, was not taken up ; but it is obvious that a
man does not propose to become a Governor-General in
order to make a report.

We are in the region of speculations ; one other
presents itself. Was the movement in the Press during
that second week of January a genuine movement, ex-
pressing a spontaneous wave of popular feeling ? Or
was it a cause of that feeling, rather than an effect ? The
engineering of a newspaper agitation may not have been
an impossibility-even so long ago as 1884. One would
like to know more than one is ever likely to know of the
relations of the imperialist section of the Government
with Mr. Stead.

But it is time to return to the solidity of fact. Within
a few hoiirs of his interview with the Ministers, Gordon

262

EMINENT VICTORIANS

had left England for ever. At eight o’clock in the evening,
there was a little gathering of elderly gentlemen at Victoria
Station. Gordon, accompanied by Colonel Stewart, who
was to act as his second-in-command, tripped on to the
platform. Lord Granville bought the necessary tickets ;
the Duke of Cambridge opened the railway-carriage door.
The General jumped into the train ; and then Lord
Wolseley appeared, carrying a leather bag, in which were
two hundred pounds in gold, collected from friends at the
last moment, for the contingencies of the journey. The
bag was handed through the window. The train started.
As it did so, Gordon leant out, and addressed a last whis-
pered question to Lord Wolseley. Yes, it had been done.
Lord Wolseley had seen to it himself ; next morning,
every member of the Cabinet would receive a copy of
Dr. Samuel Clarke’s Scripture Promises. That was all.
The train rolled out of the station.

Before the travellers reached Cairo, steps had been
taken which finally put an end to the theory— if it had
ever been seriously held — ^that the purpose of the mission
was simply the making of a report. On the very day of
Gordon’s departure, Lord Granville telegraphed to Sir
Evelyn Baring as follows : “ Gordon suggests that it may
be announced in Egypt that he is on his way to Khartoum
to arrange for the future settlement of the Sudan for the
best advantage of the people.” Nothing was said of
reporting. A few days later, Gordon himself telegraphed
to Lord Granville suggesting that he should be made
Governor-General of the Sudan, in order to “ accomplish
the evacuation,” and to “ restore to the various Sultans
of the Sudan their independence.” Lord Granville at once
authorised Sir Evelyn Baring to issue, if he thought fit, a
proclamation to this effect in the name of the Khedive. Thus
the mission “ to report ” had already swollen into a Govemw-
Generalship, with the object, not merely of effecting the
evacuation of the Soudan, but also of setting up “ various
Sultans ” to take the place of the Egyptian Government.

THE END OF GENERAL GORDON 268

In Cairo, in spite of the hostilities of the past, Gordon
was received with every politeness. He was at once
proclaimed Governor-General of the Sudan, with the
widest powers. He was on the point of starting off again
on his journey southwards, when a singular and important
incident occurred. Zobeir, the rebel chieftain of Darfom,
against whose forces Giordon had struggled for years,
and whose son, Suleiman, had been captured and executed
by Gessi, Gordon’s lieutenant, was still detained at Cairo.
It so fell out that he went to pay a visit to one of the
Ministers at the same time as the new Governor-General.
The two men met face to face, and, as he looked into the
savage countenance of his old enemy, an extraordinary
shock of inspiration ran through Gordon’s brain. He
was seized, as he explained in a State paper, which he
drew up immediately after the meeting, with a “ mystic
feeling ” that he could trust Zobeir. It was true that
Zobeir was “ the greatest slave-hunter who ever existed ” ;
it was true that he had a personal hatred of Gordon, owing
to the execution of Suleiman — “ and one cannot wonder
at it, if one is a father ; ” it was true that, only a few
days previously, on his way to Egypt, Gordon himself
had been so convinced of the dangerous character of
Zobeir that he had recommended by telegram his removal
to Cyprus. But such considerations were utterly ob*
literated by that one moment of electric impact, of personal
vision ; henceforward there was a rooted conviction in
Gordon’s mind that Zobeir was to be trusted, that Zobeir
must join him at Khartoum, that Zobeir’s presence would
paralyse the Mahdi, that Zobeir must succeed him in the
government of the country after the evacuation. Did not
Sir Evelyn Baring, too, have the mystic feeling ? Sir
Evelyn Baring confessed that he had not. He distrusted
m 3 rstic feelings. Zobeir, no doubt, might possibly be
useful ; but before deciding upon so important a matter
it was necessary to reflect and to consult.

In the meantime, failing Zobeir, something might

264

EMINENT VICTORIANS

perhaps be done with the Emir Abdul-Shakour, the heir
of the Darfour Sultans. The Emir, who had been living
in domestic retirement in Cairo, was with some difficulty
discovered, given £2000, an embroidered uniform, together
with the largest decoration that could be found, and
informed that he was to start at once with General Gordon
for the Sudan, where it would be his duty to occupy the
province of Darfour, after driving out the forces of the
Mahdi. The poor man begged for a little delay ; but no
delay could be granted. He hurried to the railway station
in his frock-coat and fez, and rather the worse for liquor.
Several extra carriages for his twenty-three wives and a
large quantity of luggage had then to be hitched on to the
Governor-General’s train ; and at the last moment some
commotion was caused by the unaecountable disappear-
ance of his embroidered uniform. It was found, but his
troubles were not over. On the steamer. General Giordon
was very rude to him, and he drowned his chagrin in hot
rum and water. At Assuan he disembarked, declaring
that he would go no further. Eventually, however, he
got as far as Dongola, whence, after a stay of a few months,
he retxirned with his family to Cairo.

In spite of this little conti;etcmps, Gordon was in the
highest spirits. At last his capacities had been recognised
by his countrymen ; at last he had been entrusted with
a task great enough to satisfy even his desires. He was
already famous ; he would soon be glorious. Looking
out once more over the familiar desert, he felt the searchings
of his conscience stilled by the manifest certainty that it
was for this that Providence had been reserving him through
all these years of labour and of sorrow — ^for this I What
was the Mahdi to stand up against him ? A thousand
schemes, a thousand possibilities sprang to life in his
pu llulat ing brain. A new intoxication carried him away.
“ II faut fibre toujours ivre. Tout est lit ; e’est I’unique
question.” Little though he knew it, Gordon was a
disciple of Baudelaire. “ Pour ne pas sentir I’horrible

THE END OP GENERAL GORDON 265

fardeau du Temps qui brise vos ^paules et vous penche
vers la terre, il faut vous enivrer sans treve.” Yes ; but
how feeble were those gross resources of the miserable
Abdul-Shakour 1 Rum ? Brandy ? Oh, he knew all
about them ; they were nothing. He tossed off a glass.
They were nothing at all. The true drunkenness lay else-
where. He seized a paper and pencil, and dashed down a
telegram to Sir Evelyn Baring. Another thought struck
liim, and another telegram followed. And another, and
yet another. He had made up his mind ; he would visit
the Mahdi in person, and alone. He might do that ; or
he might retire to the equator. He would decidedly
retire to the equator, and hand over the Bahr-el-Ghazal
province to the King of the Belgians. A whole flock of
telegrams flew to Cairo from every stopping-place. Sir
Evelyn Baring was patient and discreet ; he could be
trusted with such confidences ; but unfortimately Gordon’s
strange exhilaration found other outlets. At Berber, in
the course of a speech to the assembled chiefs, he revealed
the intention of the Egyptian Government to withdraw
from the Sudan. The news was everywhere in a moment,
and the results were disastrous. The tribesmen, whom
fear and interest had still kept loyal, perceived that they
need look no more for help or punishment from Egypt,
and began to turn their eyes towards the rising sun.

Nevertheless, for the moment, the prospect wore a
favourable appearance. The Governor-General was wel-
comed at every stage of his journey, and on February 18th
he made a triumphal entry into Khartoum. The feeble
garrison, the panic-stricken inhabitants, hailed him as a
deliverer. Surely they need fear no more, now that the
great English Pasha had come among them. His first
acts seemed to show that a new and happy era had begun.
Taxes were remitted, the bonds of the usurers were
destroyed, the victims of Egyptian injustice were set free
from the prisons ; the immemorial instruments of torture
-—the stocks and the whips and the branding-irons ^were

266 EMINENT VICTORIANS

broken to pieces in the public square.' A bolder measure
had been already taken. A proclamation had been issued
sanctioning slavery in the Sudan. Gordon, arguing that
he was powerless to do away with the odious institution,
which, as soon as the withdrawal was carried out, would
inevitably become universal, had decided to reap what
benefit he could from the public abandonment of an un-
popular policy. At Kkartoum the announcement was
received with enthusiasm, but it caused considerable
perturbation in England. The Christian hero, who had
spent so many years of his life in suppressing slavery,
was now suddenly found to be using his high powers to
set it up again. The Anti-Slavery Society made a menacing
movement, but the Government showed a bold front, and
the popular belief in Gordon’s infallibility carried the day.

He himself was still radiant. Nor, amid the jubilation
and the devotion which surrounded him, did he forget
higher things. In all this turmoil, he told his sister, he
was “ supported.” He gave injunctions that his Egyptian
troops should have regular morning and evening prayers ;
“ they worship one God,” he said, “ .Jehovah.” And he
ordered an Arabic text, “ God rules the hearts of all men,”
to be put up over the chair of state in his audience chamber.
As the days went by, he began to feel at home again in the
huge palace which he knew so well. The glare and
the heat of that southern atmosphere, the movement of the
crowded city, the dark-faced populace, the soldiers and
the suppliants, the reawakened consciousness of power,
the glamour and the mystery of the whole strange scene —
these things seized upon him, engulfed him, and worked
a new transformation in his intoxicated heart. England,
with its complications and its policies, became an empty
vision to him ; Sir Evelyn Baring, with his cautions and
sagacities, hardly more than a tiresome name. He was
Gordon Pasha, he was the Governor-General, he was the
ruler of the Sudan. He was among his people — ^his own
people, and it was to them only that he was responsible —

THE END OF GENERAL GORDON 267

to them, and to God. Was he to let them fall without a
blow into the clutches of a sanguinary impostor ? Never I
He was there to prevent that. The distant governments
might mutter something about “ evacuation ” ; his thoughts
were elsewhere. He poured them into his telegrams, and
Sir Evelyn Baring sat aghast. The man who had left
London a month before, with instructions to “report
upon the best means of effecting the evacuation of the
Sudan,” was now openly talking of “ smashing up the
Mahdi ” with the aid of British and Indian troops. Sir
Evelyn Baring counted up on his fingers the various stages
of this extraordinary development in General Gordon’s
opinions. But he might have saved himself the trouble,
for, in fact, it was less a development than a reversion.
Under the stress of the excitements and the realities of his
situation at Khartoum, the policy which Gordon was
now proposing to carry out had come to tally, in every
particular, with the policy which he had originally advocated
with such vigorous conviction in the pages of the Pall
Mall Gazette.

Nor was the adoption of that policy by the English
Government by any means out of the question. For,
in the meantime, events had been taking place in the
Eastern Sudan, in the neighbourhood of the Red Sea
port of Suakin, which were to have a decisive effect upon
the prospects of Khartoum. General Baker, the brother
of Sir Samuel Baker, attempting to relieve the beleaguered
garrisons of Sinkat and Tokar, had rashly attacked the
forces of Osman Digna, had been defeated, and obliged
to retire. Sinkat and Tokar had then fallen into the
hands of the Mahdi’s general. There was a great outcry
in England, and a wave of warlike feeling passed over the
country. Lord Wolseley at once drew up a memorandum
advocating the annexation of the Sudan. In the House
of Commons even Liberals began to demand vengeance
and military action, whereupon the Government despatched
Sir Gerald Graham with a oonsiderable British force to

268

EMINENT VICTORIANS

Suakin. Sir Gerald Graham advanced, and in the battles
of El Teb and Tamai inflicted two bloody defeats upon
the Mahdi’s forces. It almost seemed as if the Govern-
ment was now committed to a policy of interference and
conquest ; as if the imperialist section of the Cabinet
were at last to have their way. The despatch of Sir
Gerald Graham coincided with Gordon’s sudden demand
for British and Indian troops with which to “ smash up
the Mahdi.” The business, he assured Sir Evelyn Baring,
in a stream of telegrams, could very easily be done. It
made him sick, he said, to see himself held in check and
the people of the Sudan t3U’annised over by “ a feeble
lot of stinking Dervishes.” Let Zobeir at once be sent
down to him, and all would be well. The original Sultans
of the country had unfortunately proved disappointing.
Their place should be taken by Zobeir. After the Mahdi
had been smashed up, Zobeir should rule the Sudan as
a subsidised vassal of England, on a similar footing to
that of the Ameer of Afghanistan. The plan was perhaps
feasible ; but it was clearly incompatible with the policy
of evacuation, as it had been hitherto laid down by the
English Government. Should they reverse that policy ?
Should they appoint Zobeir, reinforce Sir Gerald Graham,
and smash up the Mahdi ? They could not make up their
minds. So far as Zobeir was concerned, there were two
counterbalancing considerations : on the one hand. Sir
Evelyn Baring now declared that he was in favour of the
appointment ; but, on the other hand, would English
public opinion consent to a man, described by Gordon
himself as “the greatest slave-hunter who ever existed,”
being given an English subsidy and the control of the
Sudan ? While the Cabinet was wavering, Gordon took
a fatal step. The delay was intolerable, and one evening,
in a rage, he revealed his desire for Zobeir — ^which had
hitherto been kept a profound official secret — ^to Mr. Power,
the English Consul at Khartoum, and the special corre-
spondent of the Times. Perhaps he calculated that the

THE END OF GENERAL GORDON

269

public announcement of his wishes would oblige the
Government to yield to them ; if so, he was completely
mistaken, for the result was the very reverse. The country,
already startled by the proclamation in favour of slavery,
could not swallow Zobeir. The Anti-Slavery Society set
on foot a violent agitation, opinion in the House of Com-
mons suddenly stiffened, and the Cabinet, by a substantial
majority, decided that Zobeir should remain in Cairo.
The imperialist w^ave had risen high, but it had not risen
high enough ; and now it was rapidly subsiding. The
Government’s next action was decisive. Sir Gerald
Graham and his British Army were withdrawn from the
Sudan.

The critical fortnight during which these events took
plaee was the first fortnight of March. By the close of
it, Gordon’s position had undergone a rapid and terrible
change. Not only did he find liimsclf deprived, by the
decision of the Government, both of the hope of Zobeir’s
assistance and of the prospect of smashing up the Mahdi
with the aid of British troops ; the military movements
in the Eastern Sudan produced, at the very same moment,
a yet more fatal consequence. The adherents of the Mahdi
had been maddened, they had not been crushed, by Sir
Gerald Graham’s victories. When, immediately after-
wards, the English withdrew to Suakin, from which they
never again emerged, the inference seemed obvious : they
had been defeated, and their power was at an end. The
warlike tribes to the north and the north-east of Khartoum
had long been wavering. They now hesitated no longer,
and joined the Mahdi. From that moment — it was less
than a month from Gordon’s arrival at Khartoum — the
situation of the town was desperate. The line of com-
munications was cut. Though it still might be possible
for occasional native messengers, or for a few individuals
on an armed steamer, to win their way down the river
into Egypt, the removal of a large number of persons —
the loyal inhabitants or the Egyptian garrison — was

270

EMINENT VICTORIANS

henceforward an impossibility. The whole scheme of the
Gordon mission had irremediably collapsed ; worse still,
Gordon himself, so far from having effected the evacuation
of the Sudan, Avas surrounded by the enemy. “ The
question now is,” Sir Evelyn Baring told Lord Granville,
on March 24th, “ how to get General Gordon and Colonel
Stewart aAvay from Khartoum.”

The actual condition of the toAvn, however, was not,
from a military point of view, so serious as Colonel Coet-
logon, in the first moments of panic after the Hicks
disaster, had supposed. Gordon was of opinion that it
was capable of sustaining a siege of many months. With
his usual vigour, he had already begun to prepare an
elaborate system of earthworks, mines, and wire entangle-
ments, There was a five or six months’ supply of food,
there was a great quantity of ammunition, the garrison
numbered about 8000 men. There were, besides, nine
small paddle-wheel steamers, hitherto used for purposes
of communication along the Nile, which, fitted with guns
and protected by metal plates, were of considerable
militar)’^ value. “ We are all right,” Gordon told his sister
on March 15th. “ We shall, D.V., go on for months.”
So far, at any rate, there was no cause for despair. But
the effervescent happiness of three weeks since had
vanished. Gloom, doubt, disillusionment, self-question-
ing, had swooped down again upon their victim. “ Either
I must believe He does all things in mercy and love, or
else I disbelieve His existence, there is no half way in the
matter. What holes do I not put myself into I And for
what ? So mixed are my ideas. I believe ambition put
me here in this ruin.” Was not that the explanation of
it all ? “ Our Lord’s promise is not for the fulfilment of
earthly wishes; therefore, if things come to ruin here
He is still faithful, and is carrying out His great work of
divine wisdom.” How could he have forgotten that?
But he would not transgress again. ” I owe all to God,
and nothing to mjrself, for, |tumanly speaking, I have done

THE END OF GENERAL GORDON 271

very foolish things. However, if I am humbled, the
better for me.”

News of the ehanged circumstances at Khartoum was
not slow in reaching England, and a feeling of anxiety
began to spread. Among the first to realise the gravity
of the situation was Queen Victoria. “ It is alarming,”
she telegraphed to Lord Hartington on March 25th.
“ General Gordon is in danger ; you are bound to try to
save him. . . . You have incurred fearful responsibility.”
With an unerring instinct, Her Majesty forestalled and
expressed the popular sentiment. During April, when it
had become clear that the wire between Khartoum and
Cairo had been severed, when, as time passed, no word
came northward, save vague rumours pf disaster, when
at last a curtain of impenetrable mystery closed over
Khartoum, the growing uneasiness manifested itself in
letters to the newspapers, in leading articles, and in a
flood of subscriptions towards a relief fund. At the be-
ginning of May, the public alarm reached a climax. It
now appeared to be certain, not only that General Gordon
was in imminent danger, but that no steps had yet been
taken by the Government to save him. On the 5th, there
was a meeting of protest and indignation at St. James’s
Hall ; on the 9th there was a mass meeting in Hyde Park ;
on the llth there was a meeting at Manchester. The
Baroness Burdett-Coutts wrote an agitated letter to the
Times begging for further subscriptions. Somebody else
proposed that a special fund should be started, with which
“ to bribe the tribes to secure the General’s personal
safety.” A country vicar made another suggestion. Why
should not public prayers be offered up for General Gordon
in every church in the kingdom t He himself had adopted
that course last Sunday. “ Is not this,” he concluded,
“ what the godly man, the true hero, himself would wish
to be done ? ” It was all of no avail. General Gordon
remained in peril ; the Government renaained inactive.
Finally, a vote of censure was moved in the House of

272

EMINENT VICTORIANS

Commons ; but that too proved useless. It was strange.
The same executive which, two months before, had trimmed
its sails so eagerly to the shifting gusts of popular opinion,
now, in spite of a rising hurricane, held on its course. A
new spirit, it was clear — a determined, an intractable
spirit — had taken control of the Sudan situation. What
was it ? The explanation was simple, and it was ominous.
Mr. Gladstone had intervened.

The old statesman was now entering upon the penul-
timate period of his enormous career. lie who had once
been the rising hope of the stern and unbending Tories,
had at length emerged, after a life-time of transmutations,
as the champion of militant democracy. He was at the
apex of his power. His great rival was dead ; he stood
pre-eminent in the eye of the nation ; he enjoyed the
applause, the confidence, the admiration, the adoration,
even, of multitudes. Yet — such was the peculiar cha-
racter of the man, and such the intensity of the feelings
which he called forth — ^at this very moment, at the height
of his popularity, he was distrusted and loathed ; already
an unparalleled animosity was gathering its forces against
him. For, indeed, there was something in his nature
which invited — ^which demanded — ^the clashing reactions
of passionate extremes. It was easy to worship Mr.
Gladstone ; to see in him the perfect model of the upright
m^n — ^the man of virtue and of religion — the man whose
whole life had been devoted to the application of high
principles to affairs of State — the man, too, whose sense
of right and justice was invigorated and eimobled by an
enthusiastic heart. It was also easy to detest him as a
hypocrite, to despise him as a demagogue, and to dread
him as a crafty manipulator of men and things for the
piuposes of his own ambition. It might have been sup-
posed that one or other of these conflicting judgments
must have been palpably absurd, that nothing short of
gross prejudice or wilful blindness, on one side or the
other, could reconcile such contradictory conceptions of

Ml ( I M s I OM

THE END OF GENERAL GORDON

278

a single human being. But it was not so ; ‘ the elements ’
were ‘ so mixed ’ in Mr. Gladstone that his bitterest enemies
(and his enemies were never mild) and his warmest friends
(and his friends were never tepid) could justify, with equal
plausibility, their denunciations or their praises. What,
then, was the truth ? In the physical universe there are
no chimeras. But man is more various than nature ;
was Mr. Gladstone, perhaps, a chimera of the spirit?
Did his very essence lie in the confusion of incompatibles ?
His very essence ? It eludes the hand that seems to grasp
it. One is baffled, as his political opponents were baffled
fifty years ago. The soft serpent coils harden into quick
strength that has vanished, leaving only emptiness and
perplexity behind. Speech was the fibre of his being j
and, when he spoke, the ambiguity of ambiguity was
revealed. The long, winding, intricate sentences, with
their vast burden of subtle and complicated qualifications,
befogged the mind like clouds, and like clouds, too, tlropped
thunderbolts. Could it not then at least be said of him
with certainty that his was a complex character ? But
here also there was a contradiction. In spite of the in-
volutions of his intellect and the contortions of his spirit,
it is impossible not to perceive a strain of naivete in Mr.
Gladstone. He adhered to some of his principles — that
of the value of representative institutions, for instance, — •
with a faith which was singularly literal ; his views upon
religion were uncritical to crudeness ; he had no sense of
humour. Compared with Disraeli’s, his attitude towards
life strikes one as that of an ingenuous child. His very
egoism was simple-minded : through all the labyrinth of
his passions there ran a single thread. But the centre of
the labyrinth ? Ah I the thread might lead there,
through those wandering mazes, at last. Only, with the
last comer turned, the last step taken, the explorer might
find that he was looking down into the gulf of a crater.
The flame shot out on every side, scorching and brilliant,
hut in the midst there wa9 a darkness.

274

EMINENT VICTORIANS

That Mr. Gladstone’s motives and ambitions were not
merely those of a hunter after popularity was never shown
more clearly than in that part of his career which, more
than any other, has been emphasised by his enemies —
his conduct towards General Gordon. He had been
originally opposed to (Jordon’s appointment, but he had
consented to it partly, perhaps, owing to the persuasion
that its purpose did not extend beyond the making of a
“ report.” Gordon once gone, events had taken their
own course ; the policy of the Government began to
slide, automatically, down a slope at the bottom of which
lay the conquest of the Sudan and the annexation of
Egypt. Sir Gerald Graham’s bloody victories awoke
Mr. Gladstone to the true condition of affairs ; he recog-
nised the road he was on and its destination ; but there
was stUl time to turn back. It was he who had insisted
upon the withdrawal of the English army from the Eastern
Sudan. The imperialists were sadly disappointed. They
had supposed that the old lion had gone to sleep, and
suddenly he had come out of his lair, and was roaring.
All their hopes now centred upon Khartoum. General
Gordon was cut off ; he was smrounded, he was in danger ;
he must be relieved. A British force must be sent to save
him. But Mr. Gladstone was not to be caught napping
a second time. When the agitation rose, when popular
sentiment was deeply stirred, when the coimtry, the press,
the sovereign herself, declared that the national honour
was involved with the fate of General Gordon, Mr. Glad
stone remained immovable. Others might picture the
triumphant rescue of a Christian hero from the clutches
of heathen savages ; before his eyes was the vision of
battle, murder, and sudden death, the horrors of defeat
and victory, the slaughter and the anguish of thousands,
the violence of military domination, the enslavement of
a people. The invasion of the Sudan, he had flashed oat
in the House of Commons, would be a war of conquest
against a people struggling to be free, “Yes, those

THE END OF GENERAL GORDON 275

people are struggling to be free, and they are rightly
struggling to be free.” Mr. Gladstone — ^it was one of his
old-fashioned simplicities — ^believed in Uberty. If, indeed,
it should turn out to be the fact that General Gordon was
in serious danger, then, no doubt, it would be necessary
to send a reUef expedition to Khartomn. But he could
see no sufficient reason to believe that it was the fact.
Communications, it was true, had been interrupted between
Khartoum and Cairo, but no news was not necessarily
bad news, and the little information that had come
through from Gteneral Gordon seemed to indicate that he
could hold out for months. So his agile mind worked,
spinning its familiar web of possibilities and contingencies
and fine distinctions. General Gordon, he was convinced,
might be hemmed in, but he was not surrounded. Surely,
it was the duty of the Government to take no rash step,
but to consider and to inquire, and, when it acted, to act
upon reasonable conviction. And then, there was another
question. If it was true — ^and he believed it was true —
that General Gordon’s line of retreat was open, why did
not General Gordon use it ? Perhaps he might be unable
to withdraw the Egyptian garrison, but it was not for the
sake of the Egyptian garrison that the relief expedition
was proposed ; it was simply and solely to secure the
personffi safety of General Gordon. And General Gordon
had it in his power to secure his personal safety himself ;
and he refused to do so ; he lingered on in Khartoum,
deliberately, wilfully, in defiance of the obvious wishes of
his superiors. Oh 1 it was perfectly clear what. General
Gordon was doing : he was trying to force the hand of the
En glish Government. He was hoping that if he only
renuiined long enough at Khartoum he would oblige the
En glish Government to send an army into the Sudan
which should smash up the Mahdi. That, then, was
General Gordon’s calculation ! Well, General Gordon
would learn that he had made a mistake. Who was he
tiiat he should dare to imagine that he could impose his

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will upon Mr. Gladstone ? The old man’s eyes glared.
If it came to a struggle between them — well, they should
see 1 As the weeks passed, the strange situation grew
tenser. It was like some silent deadly game of bluff.
And who knows what was passing in the obscure depths
of that terrifying spirit ? What mysterious mixture of
remorse, rage, and jealousy ? Who was it that was
ultimately responsible for sending General Gordon to
Khartoum ? But then, what did that matter ? Why
did not the man come back ? He was a Christian hero,
was he ? Were there no other Christian heroes in the
world ? A Christian hero ! Let him wait till the Mahdi’s
ring was really round him, till the Mahdi’s spear was really
about to fall ! That would be the test of heroism ! If

he slipped back then, with his tail between his legs !

The world would judge.

One of the last telegrams sent by Gordon before the
wire was cut seemed to support exactly Mr. Gladstone’s
diagnosis of the case. He told Sir Evelyn Baring that,
since the Government refused to send either an expedition
or Zobeir, he would “ consider himself free to act according
to circumstances.” “ Eventually,” he said, “ j'^ou will be
forced to smash up the Madhi,” and he declared that if
the Government persisted in its present line of conduct,
it would be branded with an “ indelible disgraccj*” The
message was made public, and it happened that Mr.
Gladstone saw it for the first time in a newspaper, during
a country visit. Another of the guests, who was in the
room at the moment, thus describes the scene. “ He
took up the paper, his eye instantly fell on the telegram,
and he read it through. As he read, his face hardened
and whitened, the eyes bruned as I have seen them once
or twice in the House of Commons when he was angered
— burned with a deep lire, as if they would have consumed
the sheet on which Gordon’s message was printed, or as
if Gordon’s words had burnt into his soul, which was look-
ing out in wrath and flame. He said not a word. For

277

THE END OF GENERAL GORDON

perhaps iwo or three minutes he sat still, his face all the
while like the face you may read of in Milton — ^like none
other I ever saw. Then he rose, still without a word,
and was seen no more that morning.”

It is curious that Gordon himself never understood
the part that Mr. Gladstone was playing in his destiny.
His Khartoum Journals put this beyond a doubt. Except
for one or two slight and jocular references to Mr. Glad-
stone’s minor idiosyncrasies — the shape of his collars,
and his passion for felling trees — Gordon leaves him un-
noticed, while he lavishes his sardonic humour upon Lord
Granville. But in truth Lord Granville was a nonentity.
The error shows how dim the realities of England had
grown to the watcher in Khartoum. When he looked
towards home, the figure that loomed largest upon his
vision was — it was only natural that it should have been
so — the nearest. It was upon Sir Evelyn Baring that
he fixed his gaze. For him Sir Evelyn Baring was the
embodiment of England — or rather the embodiment of
the English official classes, of English diplomacy, of the
English Government with its hesitations, its insin-
cerities, its double-faced schemes. Sir Evelyn Baring,
he almost came to think at moments, was the prime mover,
the sole contriver, of the whole Sudan imbroglio. In
this he was wrong; for Sir Evelyn Baring, of course,
was an intermediary, without final responsibility or final
power ; but Gordon’s profound antipathy, his instinctive
distrust, were not without their justification. He could
never forget that first meeting in Cairo, six years earlier,
when the fundamental hostility between the two men had
leapt to the surface. “ Wlicn oil mixes with water,”
he said, “we will mix together.” Sir Evelyn Baring
thought so too ; but he did not say so ; it was not his
way. When he spoke, he felt no temptation to express
everything that was in his mind. In all he did, he was
cautious, measured, tmimpeachably correct. It would
be difficult to think of a man more completely the

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EMINENT VICTORIANS

antithesis of Gordon. His temperament, all in mono-
chrome, touched in with cold blues and indecisive greys,
was eminently unromantic. He had a steely colourlessness,
and a steely pliability, and a steely strength. Endowed
beyond most men with the capacity of foresight, he was
endowed as very few men have ever been with that
staying-power which makes the fruit of foresight attain-
able. His views were long, and his patience was even
longer. He progressed imperceptibly ; he constantly
withdrew; the art of giving way he practised with the
refinement of a virtuoso. But, though the steel recoiled
and recoiled, in the end it •would spring forward. His
life’s work had in it an element of paradox. It was passed
entirely in the East ; and the East meant very little to
him ; he took no interest in it. It was something to be
looked after. It was also a convenient field for the talents
of Sir Evelyn Baring. Yet it must not be supposed that
he was cynical ; perhaps he was not quite great enough
for that. He looked forward to a pleasant retirement —
a country place — some literary recreations. He had been
careful to keep up his classics. His ambition can be stated
in a single phrase ; it was, to become an institution ;
and he achieved it. No doubt, too, he deserved it. The
greatest of poets, in a bitter mood, has described the
characteristics of a certain class of persons, whom he
did not like. “ They,” he says,

that have power to hurt and will do none.

That do not do tho things they most do show,

Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,

Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow,

They rightly do inherit heaven’s graces,

And husband nature’s riches from expense ;

They are the lords and owners of their faces. ...”

The words might have been written for Sir Evelyn
Baring.

Though, as a rule, he found it easy to despise those
with whom he came into contact, he could not altogether

THE END OF GENERAL GORDON 279

despise General Gordon. If he could have, he would have
disliked him less. He had gone as far as his caution had
allowed him in trying to prevent the fatal appointment ;
and then, when it had become clear that the Government
was insistent, he had yielded with a good grace. For a
moment, he had imagined that all might yet be well ;
that he could impose himself, by the weight of his position
and the force of his sagacity, upon his self-willed subordi-
nate; that he could hold him in a leash at the end of
the telegraph wire to Khartomn. Very soon he perceived
that this was a miscalculation. To his disgust, he fovmd
that the telegraph wire, far from being an instrument of
official discipline, had been converted by the agile strategist
at the other end of it into a means of extending his own
personality into the deliberations at Cairo. Every morning
Sir Evelyn Baring would find upon his tabic a great pile
of telegrams from Elhartoum — ^twenty or thirty at least ;
and as the day went on, the pile would grow. When a
sufficient number had accumulated he would read them
all through, with the greatest care. There upon the
table, the whole soul of Gordon lay before him — ^in its
incoherence, its eccentricity, its impulsiveness, its romance ;
the jokes, the slang, the appeals to the prophet Isaiah,
the whirl of contradictory policies — Sir Evelyn Baring
did not know which exasperated him most. He would
not consider whether, or to what degree, the man was a
mamac ; no, he would not. A subacid smile was the only
comment he allowed himself. His position, indeed, was
an extremely difficult one, and all his dexterity wordd be
needed if he was to emerge from it with credit. On
one side of him was a veering and vacillating Government ;
on the other, a frenzied enthusiast. It was his business
to interpret to the first the wishes, or rather the inspira-
tions, of the second, and to convey to the second the
decisions, or rather the indecisions, of the first. A weaker
man wmtld have floated helplessly on the ebb and flow
of the Cabinet’s wavering policies ; a rasher man would

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EMINENT VICTORIANS

have plunged headlong into Gordon’s schemes. He did
neither ; with a singular courage and a singular caution
he progressed along a razor-edge. He devoted all his
energies ‘to the double task of evolving a reasonable
policy out of Gordon’s intoxicated telegrams, and of
inducing the divided Ministers at home to give their
sanction to what he had evolved. He might have
succeeded, if he had not had to reckon with yet another
irreconcilable ; Time was a Autal element in the situation,
and Time was against him. When the tribes round
Khartoum rose, the last hope of a satisfactory solution
vanished. He was the first to perceive the altered con-
dition of affairs ; long before the Government, long before
Gordon himself, he understood that the only remaining
question was that of the extrication of the Englishmen
from Khartoum. He proposed that a small force should
be despatched at once across the desert from Suakin to
Berber, the point on the Nile nearest to the Red Sea, and
thence up the river to Gk)rdon ; but, after considerable
hesitation, the military authorities decided that this was
not a practicable plan. Upon that, he foresaw, with
Iierfect lucidity, the inevitable development of events.
Sooner or later, it would be absolutely necessary to send
a relief expedition to Khartoum ; and, from that premise,
it followed, without a possibility of doubt, that it was
the duty of the Government to do so at once. This he
saw quite clearly ; but he also saw that the position in
the Cabinet had now altered, that Mr. Gladstone had
taken the reins into his own hands. And Mr. Gladstone
did not wish to send a relief expedition. What was Sir
Evelyn Baring to do ? Was he to pit his strength against
Mr. Gladstone’s ? To threaten resignation ? To stake
his whole future upon General Gordon’s fate? For a
moment he wavered; he seemed to hint that imless
the Government sent a message to Khartoiun promising
a relief expedition before the end of the year, he would
be unable to be a party to their acts. The Government

THE END OF GENERAL GORDON 281

refused to send any such message ; and he perceived, as
he tells us, that “ it was evidently useless to continue
the correspondence any further.” After all, what could
he do ? He was still only a secondary figure ; his resig-
nation would be accepted ; he would be given a colonial
governorship, and Gordon would be no nearer safety.
But then, could he sit by, and witness a horrible catas-
trophe, without lifting a hand ? Of all the odious dilem-
mas which that man had put him into, this, he reflected,
was the most odious. He slightly shrugged his shoulders.
No ; he might have “ power to hurt,” but he would “ do
none.” He wrote a despatch — a long, balanced, guarded,
grey despatch, informing the Government that he
“ ventured to think ” that it was “ a question worthy of
consideration, whether the naval and military authorities
should not take some preliminary steps in the way of
preparing boats, etc., so as to be able to move, should
the necessity arise.” Then, within a week, before the
receipt of the Government’s answer, he left Egypt. From
the end of April till the beginning of September —
during the most momentous period of the whole crisis —
he was engaged in London upon a financial conference,
while his place Avas taken in Cairo by a substitute. With
a characteristically convenient unobtrusiveness. Sir Evelyn
Baring had vanished from the scene.

Meanwhile, far to the southward, over the wide-
spreading lands watered by the Upper Nile and its
tributaries, the power and the glory of him who had once
been Mahommed Ahmed were growing still. In the
Bahr-el-Ghazal, the last embers of resistance were
stamped out with the capture of Lupton Bey, and
through the whole of that vast province — ^three times
the size of England — every trace of the Egyptian
government was obliterated. Still further south the
same fate was rapidly overtaking Equatoria, where Emin
Pashft, withdrawing into the unexplored depths of
central Africa, carried with him the last vestiges of the

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EMINENT VICTORIANS

old order. The Mahdi himself still lingered in his head-
qiiarters at El Obeid ; but, on the rising of the tribes
round Ediartoum, he had decided that the time for an
offensive movement had come, and had despatched an
army of thirty thousand men to lay siege to the city.
At the same time, in a long and elaborate proclamation,
in which he asserted, with all the elegance of oriental
rhetoric, both the sanctity of his mission and the in-
vincibility of his troops, he called upon the in h abitants
to sxurendcr. Gordon read aloud the summons to the
assembled townspeople ; with one voice they declared
that they were ready to resist. This was a false Mahdi,
they said ; God would defend the right ; they put their
trust in the Governor-General. The most learned Sheikh
in the town drew up a theological reply, pointing out that
the Mahdi did not fulfil the requirements of the ancient
prophets. At his appearance, had the Euphrates dried
up and revealed a hill of gold ? Had contradiction and
difference ceased upon the earth ? A nd moreover, did
not the faithful know that the true Mahdi was born in
the year of the prophet 255, from which it surely followed
that he must be now 1046 years old ? And was it not
clear to all men that this pretender was not a tenth of
that age ? These arguments were certainly forcible ;
but the Mahdi’s army was more forcible still. The
besieged sallied out to the attack ; they were defeated ;
and the rout that followed was so disgraceful that two
of the commanding officers were, by Gordon’s orders,
executed as traitors. From that moment the regular
investment of Khartoum began. The Arab generals
decided to starve the town into submission. When,
after a few weeks of doubt, it became certain that no
British force was on its way from Suakin to smash up the
Mahdi, and when, at the end of May, Berber, the last
connecting link between Khartoum and the outside world,
fell into the hands of the enemy, Gordon set his teeth,
and sat down to wait and to hope, as best he might.

THE END OF GENERAL GORDON 283

With unceasing energy he devoted himself to the strength-
ening of his defenees and the organisation of his resources
— ^to the digging of earthworks, the manufacture of
ammunition, the collection and the distribution of food.
Every day there were sallies and skirmishes ; every day
his little armoured steamboats paddled up and down
the river, scattering death and terror as they w’ent.
Whatever the emergency, he was ready with devices and
expedients. When the earthworks were still vmcom-
pleted he procured hiindreds of yards of cotton, which
he dyed the colour of earth, and spread out in long sloping
lines, so as to deceive the Arabs, while the real works
were being prepared further back. When a lack of money
began to make itself felt, he printed and circulated a
paper coinage of his own. To combat the growing dis-
content and disaffection of the townspeople he instituted
a system of orders and medals ; the women were not
forgotten ; and his popularity redoubled. There was
terror in the thought that harm might come to the
Governor-General. Awe and reverence followed him ;
wherever he went, he was surrounded by a vigilant and
jealous guard, like some precious idol, some mascot of
victory. How could he go away ? How could he desert
his people ? It was impossible. It would be, as he
himself exclaimed in one of his latest telegrams to Sir
Eveljm Baring, “ the climax of meanness,” even to
contemplate such an act. Sir Evelyn Baring thought
differently. In his opinion it was General Gordon’s
jplam duty to have come away from lOiartoum. To
stay involved inevitably a relief expedition — a great
expense of treasure and the loss of valuable lives ; to
come away would merely mean that the inhabitants of
Khartoum would be “ taken prisoner by the Mahdi.”
So Sir Evelyn Baring put it ; but the case was not quite
so simple as that. When Berber fell, there had been a
massacre lasting for days — an appalling orgy of loot and
hist and slaughter ; when Elhartoum itself was captured*

284

EMINENT VICTORIANS

what followed was still more terrible. Decidedly, it was
no child's play to be “ taken prisoner by the Mahdi.”
And Gordon was actually there, among those people,
in closest intercourse with them, responsible, beloved.
Yes ; no doubt. But was that, in truth, his only motive ?
Did he not wish in reality, by lingering in Khartoum, to
force the hand of the Government ? To oblige them
whether they would or no, to send an army to smash up
the Mahdi ? And was that fair ? Was that his duty ?
He might protest, with his la^t breath, that he had
“ tried to do his duty ” ; Sir Evelyn Baring, at any rate,
would not agree.

But Sir Evelyn Baring was inaudible, and Gordon
now cared very little for his opinions. Is it possible
that, if only for a moment, in his extraordinary predica-
ment, he may have listened to another and a very different
.voice — a voice of singular quality, a voice which — for so
one would fain imagine — may well have wakened some
familiar echoes in his heart ? One day, he received a
private letter from the Mahdi. The letter was accom-
panied by a small bundle of clothes. “ In the name
of God ! ” wrote the Mahdi, “ herewith a suit of clothes,
consisting of a coat (jibbeh), an overcoat, a turban, a cap,
a girdle, and beads. This is the clothing of those who
have given up this world and its vanities, and who look
for the world to come, for everlasting happiness in
Paradise. If you truly desire to come to God and seek
to live a godly life, you must at once wear this suit, and
come out to accept your everlasting good fortune.” Did
the words bear no meaning to the mystic of Gravesend ?
But he was an English gentleman, an English officer.
He flung the clothes to the ground, and trampled on them
in the sight of all. Then, alone, he went up to the roof
of his high palace, and turned the telescope once more,
almost mechanically, towards the north.

But nothing broke the immovability of that hard
horizon ; and, indeed, how was it possible that help should

THE END OF GENERAL GORDON 285

come to him now ? He seemed to be utterly abandoned.
Sir Evelyn Baring had disappeared into his financial
conference. In England, Mr. Gladstone had held firm,
had outfaced the House of Commons, had ignored the
Press. He appeared to have triumphed. Though it was
clear that no preparations of any kind were being made
for the relief of Gordon, the anxiety and agitation of the
public, which had risen so suddenly to such a height of
vehemence, had died down. The dangerous beast had
been quelled by the stern eye of its master. Other
questions became more interesting — the Reform Bill,
the Russians, the House of Lords. Gordon, silent in
Khartoum, had almost di’opped out of remembrance.
And yet, help did come after all. And it came from an
unexpected quarter. Lord Hartington had been for some
time convinced that he was responsible for Gordon’s
appointment ; and his conscience was beginning to grow
uncomfortable.

Lord Hartington’s conscience was of a piece with the
rest of him. It was not, like Mr. Gladstone’s, a salaman-
der-conscience — an intangible, dangerous creature, that
loved to live in the fire ; nor was it, like Gordon’s, a
restless conscience ; nor, like Sir Evelyn Baring’s, a diplo-
matic conscience ; it was a commonplace affair. Lord
Hartington himself would have been disgusted by any
mention of it. If he had been obliged, he would have
alluded to it distantly ; he would have muttered that it
was a bore not to do the proper thing. He was usually
bored — for one reason or another ; but this particular
form of boredom he found more intense than all the rest.
He would take endless pains to avoid it. Of course, the
whole thing was a nuisance — an obvious nuisance ; and
every one else must feel just as he did about it. And
yet people seemed to have got it into their heads that he
had some kind of special faculty in such matters — ^that
there was some peculiar value in his judgment on a
question'of right and wrong. He could not understand

286

EMINENT VICTORIANS

why it was ; but whenever there was a dispute about
cards in a club, it was brought to him to settle. It was
most odd. But it was true. In public affairs, no less
than in private. Lord Hartington’s decisions carried an
extraordinary weight. The feeling of his idle friends in
high society was shared by the great mass of the English
people ; here was a man they could trust. For indeed
he was built upon a pattern which was very dear to his
countrymen. It was not simply that he was honest :
it was that his honesty was an English honesty — ^an
honesty which natiually belonged to one who, so it seemed
to them, was the living image of what an Englishman
should be. In Lord Hartington they saw, embodied and
glorified, the very qualities whieh were nearest to their
hearts — impartiality, solidity, common sense — the qualities
by which they themselves longed to be distinguished,
and by which, in their happier moments, they believed
they were. If ever they began to have misgivings, there,
at any rate, was the example of Lord Hartington to
encourage them and guide them — ^Lord Hartington, who
was never self-seeking, who was never excited, and who
had no imagination at all. Everything they knew about
him fitted into the picture, adding to their admiration
and respect. His fondness for field sports gave them a
feeling of security ; and certainly there could be no non-
sense about a man who confessed to two ambitions —
to become Prime Minister and to win the Derby — ^and
who put the second above the first. They loved him for
his casualness — ^for his inexactness — ^for refusing to make
life a cut-and-dried business — ^for ramming an official
despatch of high importance into his~c6at-pocket, and
finding it there, still unopened, at Newmarket, several
days later. They loved him for his hatred of fine senti-
ments ; they were delighted when they heard that at
some function, on a florid speaker’s avowing that “ this
was the proudest moment of his life,” Lord Hartington
had growled in an undertone “ the proudest moment of

THE END OF GENERAL GORDON 287

my life, was when my pig won the prize at Skipton fair.”
Above all, they lov^ him for being dull. It was the
greatest comfort — ^with Lord Hartington they could
always be absolutely certain that he would never, in
any circumstances, be either brilliant, or subtle, or sur-
prising, or impassioned, or profound. As they sat, listen-
ing to his speeches, in which considerations of stolid
plaiimess succeeded one another with complete flatness,
they felt, involved and supported by the colossal tedium,
that their confidence was finally assured. They looked
up, and took their fill of the sturdy obvious presenee.
The inheritor of a splendid dukedom might almost have
passed for a farm hand. Almost, but not quite. J’or
an air, that was difficult to explain, of preponderating
authority lurked in the solid figure j and the lordly
breeding of the House of Cavendish was visible in the
large, long, bearded, xmimpressionable face.

One other characteristic — ^the necessary consequence, or
indeed, it might almost be said, the essential expression, of
all the rest — completes the portrait : Lord Hartington was
slow. He was slow in movement, slow in apprehension, slow
in thought and the commimication of thought, slow to decide,
and slow to aet. More than once this disposition exercised
a profound effect upon his career. A private individual may,
perhaps, be slow with impunity; but a statesman who is
slow — ^whatever the force of his character and the strength
of his judgment — can hardly escape unhurt from the hurrying
of Time’s wingM chariot, can hardly hope to avoid some
grave disaster or some irretrievable mistake. The fate of
General Gordon, so intricately interwoven with such a mass
of complicated circumstance — ^with the policies of England
and of Egypt, with the fanaticism of the Mahdi, with the
irreproachability of Sir Evelyn Baring, witli Mr. Gladstone’s
mysterious passions — ^was finally determined by the fact
that Lord Hartington was slow. If he had been even a very
little quicker — ^if he had been quicker by two days . . . but it
^uld not be. The ponderous machinery todk so long to

288

EMINENT VICTORIANS

set itself in motion ; the great wheels and levers, once
started, revolved with such a laborious, such a painful
deliberation, tliat at last their work was accomplished —
smely, firmly, completely, in the best English manner, and
too late.

Seven stages may be discerned in the history of Lord
Haitington’s influence upon the fate of General Gordon.
At the end of the first stage, he liad become convinced that
he was responsible for Gordon’s appointment to Khartoum.
At the end of the second, he had perceived that his conscience
would not allow him to remain inactive in the face of Gordon’s
danger. At the end of the third, he had made an attempt
to induce the Cabinet to send an expedition to Gordon’s
relief. At the end of the foiurth, he liad realised that the
Cabinet liad decided to postpone the relief of Gordon inde*
finitely. At the end of the fifth, he liad come to the con-
clusion tliat he must put pressure upon Mr. Gladstone. At
the end of the sixth, he had attempted to put pressure
upon Mr. Gladstone, and had not succeeded. At the end
of the seventh, he had succeeded in putting pressme upon
Mr. Gladstone; the relief expedition had been ordered;
he could do no more. The turning-point in this long and
extraordinary process ocemred towards the end of April,
when the Cabinet, after the receipt of Sir Evelyn Baring’s
final despatch, decided to take no immediate measures for
Gordon’s relief. From tliat moment it was clear that there
was only one coirrse open to Lord Hartington — ^to tell Mr.
Gladstone tliat he would resign unless a relief expedition
was sent. But it took him more than three months to come
to this conclusion. He always found the proceedings at
Cabinet meetings particularly hard to follow. The inter-
change of question and answer, of proposal and counter-
proposal, the crowded counsellors, Mr. Gladstone’s subtleties,
the abrupt and complicated resolutions — ^these things inva-
riably left him confused and perplexed. After the crucial
Cabinet at the end of April, he came away in a state of
imcertainty as to what had occurred; he had to write to

THE END OF GENERAL GORDON

289

Lord Granville to find ont ; and by that time, of course,
the Government’s decision had been telegraphed to Egypt.
Three weeks later, in the middle of May, he had grown so
uneasy that he felt himself obliged to address a circular
letter to the Cabinet, proposing that preparations for a relief
expedition should be set on foot at once. And then he
began to understand that nothing would ever be done until
Mr. Gladstone, by some means or other, had been forced to
give his consent. A singular combat followed. The slippery
old man perpetually eluded the cumbrous grasp of his
antagonist. He delayed, he postponed, he raised interminable
tliflieultics, he prevaricated, he was silent, he disappeared.
Lord Ilartington was dauntless. Gradually, inch by inch,
he drove the Prime Minister into a corner. But in the
meantime many weeks had passed. On July 1st Lord
ILirtiiigton was still remarking that he “ really did not feel
that he knew the mind or intention of the Government in
respect of the relief of General Gordon.” The month was
spent in a succession of stubborn efforts to wring from Mr.
Gladstone some definite statement upon the question. It
was useless. On July 31st, Lord Hartington did the deed.
He stated that, unless an expedition was sent, he would
resign. It was, he said, “ a question of personal honour and
good faith, and I don’t see how I can yield upon it.” His
conscience had worked itself to rest at last.

When Mr. Gladstone read the words, he realised tliat the
game was over. Lord Hartington’s position in the Liberal
party was second only to his own ; he was the loader of the
rich and powerful whig aristocracy ; his influence with the
country was immense. Nor was he the man to make idle
threats of resignation ; he had said he would resign, and
resign he would : the collapse of the Government would be
the inevitable result. On August 5th, therefore. Parliament
was asked to make a grant of £300,000, in order “ to enable
Her Majesty’s Government to undertake operations for the
relief of General Gordon, should they become necessary.”
The money was voted; and even then, at that last hour,

u

290

EMINENT VICTORIANS

Mr. Gladstone made another, ftnal, desperate twist. Trying
to save himself by the proviso which he had inserted into
the resolution, he declared that he was still unconvinced of
the necessity of any operations at all. “ I nearly,” he wrote
to Lord Hartington, “ but not quite, adopt words received
to-day from Granville. ‘ It is clear, I think, that Gordon
has om* messages, and does not choose to answer them.’ ”
Nearly, but not quite ! The qualification was masterly ;
but it was of no avail. This time, the sinuous creature was
held by too firm a grasp. On August 26th Lord Wolseley
was appointed to command the relief expedition ; and on
September 9th, he arrived in Egypt.

The relief expedition had begun; and at the same
moment a new phase opened at Khartoum. The aimual
rising of the Nile was now sufficiently advanced to enable
one of Gordon’s small steamers to pass over the cataracts
down to Eg 3 q>t in safety. He determined to seize the oppor-
tunity of laying before the authorities in Cairo and London,
and the English public at large, an exact account of his
position. A cargo of documents, including Colonel Stewart’s
Diary of the siege and a personal appeal for assistance
addressed by Gordon to all the European powers, was placed
on board the Abbas ; four other steamers were to accompany
her until she was out of danger from attacks by the Mahdi’s
troops ; after which, she was to proceed alone into Egypt.
On the evening of September 9th, just as she was about to
start, the English and French consuls asked for permissm
to go with her — a permission which Gordon, who had long
been anxious to provide for their safety, readily granted.
Then Colonel Stewart made the same request ; and Gordon
consented with the same alacrity. Colonel Stewart was the
second in command at Khartoum; and it seems strange
that he should liave made a proposal which would leave
Gordon in a position of the gravest anxiety without a single
European subordinate. But his motives were to be veiled
for ever in a tragic obscurity. Tlie Abbas and her convoy
set out. Henceforward the Governor-General was alone.

THE END OF GENERAL GORDON 291

He had now, definitely and finally, made his dedsion. Colonel
Stewart and his companions had gone, with every prospect
of returning unharmed to civilisation. Mr. Gladstone’s
belief was justified ; so far as Gordon’s personal safety was
concerned, he might still, at this late hour, have secured it.
But he had chosen ; he stayed at Khartoum.

No sooner were the steamers out of sight than he sat
down at his writing-table and began that daily record of
his circumstances, his reflections, and his feelings, which
reveals to us, with such an authentic exactitude, the final
period of his extraordinary destiny. His “Journals,” sent
down the river in batches to await the coming of the relief
expedition, and addressed, first to Colonel Stewart, and
later to the “ Chief of Staff, Sudan Expeditionary Force,”
were official dociunents, intended for publication, though, as
Gordon himself was careful to note on the outer covers, they
would “ want pruning out ” before they were printed. He
also wrote, on the envelope of the first section, “ No secrets
as far as I am concerned.” A more singular set of state
papers was never compiled. Sitting there, in the solitude of
his palace, with ruin closing round him, with anxieties on
every hand, with doom hanging above his head, he let his
pen rush on for hour after hour in an ecstasy of communica-
tion, a tireless unburdening of the spirit, where the most
trivial incidents of the passing day were mingled pell-mell
with philosophical disquisitions, where jests and anger,' hopes
and terrors, elaborate justifications and cynical confessions,
jostled one another in reckless confusion. The impulsive,
demonstrative man had nobody to talk to any more, and so
he talked instead to the pile of telegraph-forms, which, useless
now for perplexing Sir Evelyn Baring, served very well — .
for they were large and blank — as the repositories of his
conversation. BBs tone was not the intimate and religious
tone which he would have used with the Rev. Mr. Barnes
or his sister Augusta ; it was such as must have been habitual
with him in his interoourse with old friends or fellow officers,
whose religious views, were of a more ordinary caste than his

292

EMINENT VICTORIANS

own, but with whom he was on confidential terms. He was
amdous to put his case to a select and sympathetic audience
— to convince such a man as Lord Wolseley that he was
justified in what he liad done ; and he was sparing in his
allusions to the hand of Providence, while those mysterious
doubts and piercing introspections, which must have filled
him, he almost entirely concealed. He expressed himself,
of course, with eccentric abandon — ^it would have been
impossible for him to do otherwise ; but he was content to
indicate his deepest feelings with a fl^r. Yet sometimes —
as one can imagine happening w'ith him in actual conversa-
tion — ^his utterance took the form of a half-soliloquy, a
copious outpouring addressed to himself more than to any
one else, for his own satisfaction. There are passages in
the Khartoum Joimials which call up in a flash the light,
gliding figure, and the blue eyes with the candour of child-
hood still shining in them; one can almost hear the low
voice, the singularly distinct articulation, the persuasive —
the self-persuasive — ^sentences, following each other so
unassumingly between the puffs of a cigarette.

As he wrote, two preoccupations principally filled his
mind. His reflections revolved round the inunediate past
and the impending future. With an imtiring persistency
he examined, he excused, he explained, his share in the
complicated events which had led to his present situation.
He rebutted the charges of imaginary enemies ; he laid bare
the ineptitude and the faithlessness of the English Govern-
ment. He poured out his satire upon officials and diplo-
matists. He drew caricatures, in the margin, of Sir Evelyn
Baring, with sentences of shocked pomposity coming out of
his mouth. In some passages, which the editor of the
Joumtds preferred to suppress, he covered Lord Granville
with his raillery, picturing the Foreign Secretary, lounging
a^rny his morning at Walmer Castle, opening the Times and
suddenly tfiscovering, to his horror, that Khartoum was
still holdii^ out. '‘Why, he said distincUy he could only
hold out sics months, and that was in March (counts the

THE END OF GENERAL GORDON 298

months). August I why he ought to have given in ! What
w to be done ? They’ll be howling for an expedition. . . .
It is no laughing matter; thai abominable Mahdi! Why
on earth does he not guard his roads better ? What is to
be done ? ” Several times in his bitterness he repeats the
suggestion that the authorities at home were secretly hoping
that the faU of Ehartomn would relieve them of their
culties. “ What that Mahdi is about,” Lord Granville is
made to exclaim in another deleted paragraph, “ I cannot
make out. Why does he not put all his guns on the river
and stop the route ? Eh what ? ‘ We will have to go to
Ediartoum ! * Why, it will cost millions, what a wretched
business ! What ! Send Zobeir ? Our conscience recoils
from that, it is elastic, but not equal to that, it is a pact
with the Devil. . . . Do you not think there is any way of
getting hold of HIM, in a quiet way ? ” If a boy at Eton
or Harrow, he declared, had acted as the Government had
acted, “ I think he would be kicked, and I am sure he would
deserve it.” He was the victim of hypocrites and hiunbugs.
There was “ no sort of parallel to all this in history — except
it be David with Uriah the Hittite ” ; but then “ there was
an Eve in the case,” and he was not aware that the Govern-
ment had even that excuse.

From the past, he turned to the future, and surveyed,
with a disturbed and piercing vision, the possibilities before
him. Supposing that the relief expedition arrived, what
would be his position ? Upon one thing he was determined :
whatever happened, he would not play the part of “ the
rescued lamb.” He vehemently asserted that the purpose
of the expedition could only be the relief of the Sudan
garrisons; it was monstrous to imagine that it had Seen
imdertaken merely to ensure his personal safety. He
refused to believe it. In any case, “ I declare passively,**
he wrote, with passionate underlinings, “ and once for aU,
that I xviU not leave the Sudan ufUil every one who wants to
go down is given the chance to do so, unless a govemm^t is
established, which relieves me of the diarge; therefore if

291

EMINENT VICTORIANS

any emissary or letter comes up here ordering me to come
down, I WILL NOT OBEY IT, BOT WILL STAY HEBE, AND FALL
wmi TOWN, AND BUN ALL BISKS.” This was sheer insubordi-
nation, no doubt ; but he could not help that ; it was not
in his natme to be obedient. “I know if I w’as chief, I
w'ould never employ myself, for I am incorrigible.” Decidedly,
he was not afraid to be “ what club men call insubordinate,
though, of all insubordinates, the club men are the worst.”

As for the goveniinent whieh was to replace him, there
w'CTc several alternatives : an Egyptian Pasha might succeed
him as Governor-General, or Zobeir might be appointed after
all, or the whole country might be handed over to the
Sultan. His fertile imagination evolved scheme after scheme ;
and his visions of his own futiue were equally various. He
W'ould withdraw to the Equator ; he would be delighted
to spend Christmas in Brussels ; he w'ould ... at any rate
he would never go back to England. That was certain.
“ I dw’ell on the joy of never seeing Great Britain again,
with its horrid, wearisome dinner parties and miseiics. How
we can put up with those things, passes my imagination 1
It is a perfect bondage. ... I would sooner live like a Der-
vish with the Mahdi, than go out to dinner every night in
London. I hope, if any English General comes to Khartoum,
he will not ask me to dinner. Why men cannot be friends
without bringing the wretched stomachs in, is astounding.”

But would an English General ever have the opportunity
of asking him to dinner in Khartoum ? There were moments
when terrible misgivings assailed him. He pieced together
his scraps of intelligence with feverish exactitude; he cal-
culated times, distances, marches; “if,” he wrote on
October 24th, “they do not come before 80th November,
the game is up, and Rule Britannia.” Curious premonitions
came into his mind. When he heard that the Mahdi was
approaching in person, it seemed to be the fulfilment of a
destiny, for he had “ always felt we were doomed to come
face to face.” What would be the end of it all ? “ It is,
of course, on the cards,” he noted, “ that Khartoum is taken

THE END OF GENERAL GORDON

295

under the nose of the expeditionary force, which will be
just too late.'' The splendid hawks that swooped about the
palace reminded him of a text in the Bible : — “ The eye that
mocketh at his father and despiseth to obey his mother, the
ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the yoxmg eagles
shall eat it.” “ I often wonder,” he wrote, “ whether they
are destined to pick ray eyes, for I fear I was not the best
of sons.”

So, sitting late into the night, he filled the empty tele-
graph forms with the agitations of his spirit, overflowing ever
more hxirriedly, more furiously, with lines of emphasis, and
capitals, and exclamation-marks more and more thickly
interpersed, so that the signs of his living passion are still
visible to the inquirer of to-day on those thin sheets of
mediocre paper and in the ton ent of the ink. But he was
a man of clastic temperament ; he could not remain for
ever upon the stretch ; he sought, and he found, relaxation
in extraneous matters — ^in metaphysical digressions, or in
satirical outbursts, or in the small details of his daily life.
It amused him to have the Sudanese soldiers brought in and
shown their “ black pug faces ” in the palace looking-glasses.
He watched with a cynical sympathy the impertinence of
a turkey-cock that walked in his courtyard. He made
friends with a mouse who “judging from her swelled-out
appearance,” was a lady, and came and ate out of his plate.
The cranes that flew over Khartoum in their thousands and
with their curious cry, put him in mind of the poems of
Schiller, which few ever read, but which he admired highly,
though he only knew them in Bulwer's translation. He
wrote little disquisitions on Plutarch and purgatory, on the
fear of death and on the sixteenth chapter of the Koran.
Then the turkey-cock, strutting with “ every feather on end,
and all the colours of the rainbow on his neck,” attracted
him <mce more, and he filled several pages with his opinions
upon the immortality of animals, drifting on to a discussion
of man’s positiem in the universe, and the infinite knowledge
of God. It was all clear to him. And yet — ^“what a

296

EMINENT VICTORIANS

contradiction is life t I hate Her Majesty’s Government for
their leaving the Sudan after having caused all its troubles ;
yet I believe our Lord rules heaven and earth, so I ought
to hate Him, which I (sincerely) do not.”

One painful thought obsessed liim. He believed that
the two Egyptian officers, who had been put to death after
the defeat in March, had been unjustly executed. He had
given way to “ outside influences ” ; the two Pashas had
been “judicially murdered.” Again and again he referred
to the incident, with a liaunting remorse. The Times,
perhaps, would consider that he had been justified; but
wliat did tliat matter ? “ If the Times saw tliis in print,
it would say ‘ Why, then, did you act as you did ? ’ to which
I fear I have no answer.” He determined to make what
reparation he could, and to send the families of the unfortunate
Pashas £1000 each.

On a similar, but a less serious, occasion, he put the
same principle into action. He boxed the ears of a careless
telegraph clerk — “and then, as my conscience pricked me,

I gave him $5. He said he did not mind if I killed him —

I was his father (a chocolate-coloured youth of twenty).”
His temper, indeed, was growing more and more uncertain,
as he himself was well aware. He observed with horror that
men trembled when they came into his presence — ^that their
liands shook so that they could not hold a match to a
dgarette.

He trusted no one. Looking into the faces of those who
surrounded him, he saw only the ill-dissimulated signs of -
treachery and dislike. Of the 40,000 inhabitants of Khar-
toum he calculated that two-thirds were willing — ^were per-
haps anxious — ^to become the subjects of the Mahdi. “ These
people are not worth great sacrifice,” he bitterly observed.
The Egyptian officials were utterly incompetent ; the soldiers
were cowards. All his admiration was reserved for his
enemies. The meanest of the Mahdi’s followers was, he
realised, “a determined warrior, who could undergo thirst
and privation, who no more cared for pain or death than

THE END OP GENERAL GORDON

297

if he were stone.” Those were the men whom, if the choice
had lain with him, he would have wished to command.
And yet, strangely enough, he persistently underrated the
strength of the forces against him. A handful of English-
men — a handful of Turks — ^would, he believed, be enough to
defeat the Mahdi’s hosts and destroy his dominion. He
knew very little Arabic, and he depended for his information
upon a few ignorant English-speaking subordinates. The
Mahdi himself he viewed with ambiguous feelings. He jibed
at him as a vulgar impostor; but it is easy to perceive,
under his scornful jocularities, the traces of an uneasy
respect.

He spent long hours upon the palace roof, gazing north-
wards ; but the veil of mystery and silence was unbroken.
In spite of the efforts of Major Kitchener, the officer in
command of the Egyptian Intelligence service, hardly any
messengers ever reached Khartoum; and when they did,
the information they brought was tormentingly scanty.
Major Kitchener did not escape the attentions of Gordon’s
pen. When news came at last, it was terrible: Colonel
Stewart and his companions had been killed. The Abbas,
after having passed uninjured through the part of the river
commanded by the Mahdi’s troops, had struck upon a rock ;
Colonel Stewart had disembarked in safety ; and, while he
was waiting for camels to convey the detachment across the
desert into Egypt, had accepted the hospitality of a local
sheikh. Hardly had the Europeans entered the sheikh’s hut
when they were set upon and mmdered; their native
followers shared their fate. The treacherous sheikh was an
adherent of the Mahdi, and to the Mahdi all Colonel Stewart’s
papers, filled with information as to the condition of Khar-
toum, were immediately sent. When the first rumours of
the disaster reached Gordon, he pictured, in a flash of in-
tuition, the actual detafls of the catastrophe. “ I feel some-
how convinced,” he wrote, “ they were captured by treachery.
. . . Stewart was not a bit suspicious (I am made up of it).
I can see in imagination the whole scene, the sheikh inviting

208

EMINENT VICTORIANS

them to land, . . . then a rush of wild Arabs, and all is
over ! ” “ It is veiy sad,” he added, “ but being ordained,
we must not murmur.” And yet he believed that the true
responsibility lay with him : it was the punisliment of his
own sins. “ I look on it,” was his unexpected conclusion,
“ as being a Nemesis on the death of the two Pashas.”

The workings of his conscienee did indeed take on sur-
prising shapes. Of the three ex-govemors of Darfour, Bahr-
el-Ghazal, and Equatoria, Emin Pasha had disappeared,
Lupton Bey had died, and Slatin Pasha was held in cap-
tivity by the Mahdi. By birth an Austrian and a Catholic,
Slatin, in the last desperate stages of his resistance, had
adopted tire expedient of annoimcing his conversion to
IVlahommedanisni, in order to win the confidence of his
native troops. On his capture, the fact of his conversion
procured him some degree of consideration ; and, though he
occasionally suffered from the caprices of his masters, he had
so far escaped the terrible punishment which had been meted
out to some other of the Mahdi's European prisoners — ^that
of close confinement in the common gaol. He was now kept
prisoner in one of the camps in the neighbourhood of Khar-
toum. He managed to smuggle through a letter to Gordon,
asking for assistance, in case he could make his escape. To
this letter Gordon did not reply. Slatin wrote again and
again; his piteous appeals, couched in no less piteous
French, made no effect upon the heart of the Governor-
General. “ Excellence ! ” he wrote. “ J’ai envoyd deux
lettres, sans avoir regu ime r^ponse de votre excellence. . . .
Excellence 1 j’ai me battu ^7 fois pom* le gouvemement
centre I’ennemi — on m’a feri deux fois, et j’ai rien fait contre
I’honnem — ^rien de chose qui doit empSch6 votre excellence
de m’ecrir une r4ponse que je sais quoi faire. . . . Je voua
prie, Excellence, de m’honor6 avec une r^onse. . . .
P.S. Si votre Excellence ont peutStre entendu que j’ai fait
quelque chose contre I’honnem d’un offider et cek vous
empSche de m’ecrir, je vous prie de me donner I’occasion dfe
me defendre, et jugez apres la veritA” The unfortunate

THE END OF GENERAL GORDON 299

Slatin understood weH enough the cause of Gordon’s silence.

It was in vain that he explained the motives of his conver-
sion, in vain that he pointed out that it had been made
easier for him since he had ‘‘ perhaps unhappily ^ not received
a strict religious education at home.” Gordon was adamant.
Slatin had “ denied his Lord,” and that was enough. His
communications with Khartoum were discovered and he
was put in chains. When Gordon heard of it, he noted the
fact grimly in his diary, without a comment.

A more ghastly fate awaited another European who
liad fallen into the hands of the Mahdi. Olivier Pain, a
French adventurer, who Imd taken part in the Commimc,
and who was now wandering, for reasons which have never
been discovered, in the wastes of the Sudan, was seized by
the Arabs, made prisoner, and hurried from camp to camp.
He was attacked by fever ; but mercy was not among the
virtues of the savage soldiers who held him in their power.
Hoisted upon the back of a camel, he was being carried
across the desert, when, overcome by weakness, he lost his
hold, and fell to the groxmd. Time or trouble were not to
be wasted upon an infidel. Orders were given that he should
be immediately buried ; the orders were carried out ; and
in a few moments the cavalcade had left the little hillock
far behind. But some of those who were present believed
that Olivier Pain had been still breathing when his body was
covered with the sand.

Gordon, on hearing that a Frenchman had been captured
by the Mahdi, became extremely interested. The idea
occurred to him that this mysterious individual was none
other than Ernest Renan, ‘*who,” he wrote, “ in his last
publication takes leave of the world, and is said to have
gone into Africa, not to reappear again.” He had met
Renan at the rooms of the Royal Geographical Society, had"
noticed that he looked bored — ^the result, no doubt, of too
much admiration— and had felt an instinct that he would
meet him again. The instinct now seemed to be justified.
There could hardly be any doubt that it was Renan ; who

800 . EMINENT VICTORIANS

else could it be ? “ If he comes to the lines,” he deeided,
“ and it is Renan, I shall go and see him, for whatever one
may think of his unbelief in our Lord, he certainly dared to
say wliat he thought, and he has not ehanged his creed to
save liis life.” That the mellifluous author of the Vie de
Jdsm should liave determined to end his days in the depths
of Africa, and have come, in accordance with an intuition,
to renew his acquaintance with General Gordon in the lines
of Khartoum, vrould indeed have been a strange occurrence ;
but who shall limit the strangeness of the possibilities that
lie in wait for the sons of men ? At that very moment, in
the south-eastern comer of the Sudan, another Frenchman,
of a peculiar eminence, was fulfilling a destiny more extra-
ordinary than the wildest romance. In the town of Harrar,
near the Red Sea, Artliur Rimbaud surveyed with splenetic
impatience the tragedy of Khartoum. “ C’est justement les
Anglais,” he wrote, “ avec leur absurde politique, qui minent
desormais le commerce de toutes ces c6tes. Ils ont voulu
tout remanicr et ils sont arrives a faire pire que les Egyptians
et les Turcs, ruinfe par eux. Lcmr Gordon est un idiot,
lem Wolseley un &ne, et toutes Icurs entrepriscs une suite
insens^e d’absurditds ct de depredations.” So wrote tlie
amazing poet of the Saison D'Enfer amid those futile turmoils
of petty commerce, in which, with an inexplicable delibera-
tion, he had forgotten the enchantments of an unparalleled
adolescence, forgotten the fogs of London and the streets of
Brussels, forgotten Paris, forgotten the subtleties and the
frenzies of inspiration, forgotten the agonised embraces of
Verlaine.

When the contents of Colonel Stewart’s papers had been
interpreted to the Mahdi, he realised the serious condition
of Khartoum, and decided that the time had come to press
the siege to a final conclusion. At the end of October, he
himself, at the head of a fresh army, appeared outside the
town. From that moment, the investment assiimed a more
and more menacing character. The lack of provisions now
for the first time began to make itself felt. November 80tb— •

THE END OF GENERAL GORDON 801

I

the date fixed by Gordon as the last possible moment of his
resistance — came and went; the Expeditionary force had
made no sign. The fortunate discovery of a large store of
grain, concealed by some merchants for purposes of specula-
tion, once more postponed the catastrophe. But the attaek-
ing army grew daily more active, the skirmishes round the
lines and on the river more damaging to the besieged, and
the IV^^di’s guns began an intermittent bombardment of
the palace. By December 10th it was calculated that there
was not fifteen days’ food in the town ; “ truly I am worn
to a shadow with the food question,” Gordon wrote ; “ it
is one continued demand.” At the same time he received
the ominous news that five of his soldiers had deserted to
the Mahdi. His predicament was terrible ; but he calcu-
lated, from a few dubious messages that had reached him,
that the relieving force could not be very far away. Accord-
ingly, on the 14th, he decided to send down one of his foiu
remaining steamers, the Bordeen, to meet it at Metemmah, in
order to deliver to the officer in command the latest infor-
mation as to the condition of the town. The Bordeen carried
down the last portion of the Journals, and Gordon’s final
messages to his friends. Owing to a mistmderstanding, he
believed that Sir Eveljoi Baring was accompanying the
expedition from Egypt, and some of his latest and most
successful satirical fancies played round the vision of the
distressed Consul-General perched for days upon the painful
eminence of a camel’s hump. “There was a slight laugh
when Khartoum heard Baring was bumping his way up here
— a regular Nemesis.” But, when Sir Evelyn Baring actually
arrived — in whatever condition — ^what would happen ?
Gordon lost himself in the multitude of his speculations.
His own object, he declared, was “ of course, to make tracks.”
Then in one of his strange premonitory rhapsodies, he threw
out, half in jest and half in earnest, that the best solution
of all the difficulties of the future would be the appointment
of Major Eitdrener as Govenunr-G^eral of the Sudan.
The Journal ended upon a note of menace and disdain.

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EMINENT VICTORIANS

“Now MARK THIS, if the Expeditionary Force, and I ask
for no more than two hundred men, does not come in ten
days, the Umn may fall ; and I have done my best for the
honour of our coiuitry. Good-bye. — C. G. CtoKDON.

“You send me no information, though you have lots
of money. — C. G. G.”

To Ws sister Augusta, he was more explicit. “ I decline
, to agree,” he told her, “ that the expedition comes for my
relief ; it comes for the relief of the garrisons, which I failed
to accomplish. I expect Her Majesty*s Government are in
a precious rage with me for holding out and forcing their
hand.” The admission is significant. And then came the
final adieux. “ This may be the last letter you will receive
from me, for wc are on our last legs, ov'ing to the delay of the
expedition. However, God rules all, and, as He will rule
to His glory and oiu welfare. His will be done. I fear,
owing to circumstances, that my affairs are pecimiarily not
over bright . . . your affectionate brother, C. G. Gordon.

“ P.S. I am quite happy, thank God, and, like Lawrence,
I have tried to do my duty.”

The delay of the expedition was even more serious than
Gordon liad supjwsed. Lord Wolseley had made the most
elaborate preparations. He had collected together a picked
army of 10,000 of the finest British troops ; he had arranged
a system of river transports with infinite care. For it was
his intention to take no risks ; he would advance in force
up the Nile; he had determined that the fate. of Gordon
should not depend upon the dangerous hazards of a small
and hasty exploit. There is no doubt— in view of the
opposition which the relieving force actually met with —
that his decision was a wise one ; but unfortunately he had
miscalculated some of the essential elements in the situation.
When his preparations were at last complete, it was found
that the Nile had sunk so low that the flotillas, over which
so much care had been lavished, and upon which depended
the whole success of the campaign, would be ima bto to
surmount the cataracts. At the same time — ^it was by

THE END OP GENERAL GORDON m

the middle of November — a message arrived from Gwdon
indicating that Khartoum was in serious straits. It was
clear that an immediate advance was necessary ; the river
route was out of the question ; a swift dash across the desert
was the only possible expedient after all. But no prepara-
tions for land transport had been made; weeks elapsed
beforfl<,a sufficient number of camels could be collected ; and
more weeks before those collected were trained for a military
march. It was not imtil December 80th — ^more than a
fortnight after the last entry in Gordon’s Journal — ^that Sir
Herbert Stewart, at the head of 1100 British troops, was
able to leave Korti on his march towards Metemmah, 170
miles across the desert. His advance was slow, and it was
tenaciously disputed by the Mahdi’s forces. There was a
desperate engagement on January 17th at the wells of Abu
Klea ; the British square was broken ; for a moment victory
hung in the balance; but the Arabs were repiilsed. On
the 19th, there was another furiously contested fight, in
which Sir Herbert Stewart was killed. On the 21st, the
force, now diminished by over 250 casualties, reached
Metemmah. Three days elapsed in reconnoitring the
country, and strengthening the position of the camp. On
the 24th, Sir Charles Wilson, who had succeeded to the
conunand, embarked on the Bardeen, and started up the
river for Khartoum. On the following evening, the vessel
struck on a rock, causing a further delay of twenty-four
hours. It was not imtil January 28th that Sir Charles
Wilson, arriving under a heavy fire within sight of Khartoum,
saw that the Egyptian flag was not flying from the roof
of the palace. The signs of ruin and destruction on every
hand showed clearly enough that the town had fallen. The
relief expedition was two days late.

The detaUs of what passed within Khartoum during the
last weeks of the siege are unknown to us. In the diary of
Bordeini Bey, a Levantine merchant, we catch a few glimpses
of the final stages of the catastrophe — of the starving popu-
lace, the exhausted garrison, the fluctuations of despair and

804

EMINENT VICTORIANS

hope, the dauntless energy of the Governor-General. Still
he worked on, indefatigably, apportioning provisions, eol-
leeting ammunition, consulting with the townspeople, en-
couraging the soldiers. His hair had suddenly turned quite
white. Late one evening, Bordcini Bey went to visit him
in the palace, which was being bombarded by the Mahdi’s
cannon. The high building, brilliantly lighted up, afforded
an excellent mark. As the shot came whistling round the
windows, the merchant suggested that it would be advisable
to stop them up with boxes full of sand. Upon this, Gordon
Pasha became enraged. “ He called up the guard, and gave
them ordcre to shoot me if I moved; he then brought a
very large lantern which would hold twenty-four candles.
He and I then piit the candles into the sockets, placed the
lantern on the table in front of the window, lit the candles,
and then we sal down at the table. The Pasha then said,
* When God was portioning out fear to all the people in the
world, at last it came to my turn, and there was no fear
left to give me. Go, tell all the people in Khartoum that
Gordon fears nothing, for God has created him without
fear,’ ”

On January 5th, Omdurman, a village on the opposite
bank of the Nile, which liad hitherto been occupied by the
besieged, was taken by the Arabs. The town was now closely
surrounded, and every chance of obtaining fresh supplies
was cut off. The famine became terrible; dogs, donkeys,
skins, gum, palm fibre, were devoured by the desperate
inhabitants. The soldiers stood on the fortifications like
pieces of wood. Himdreds died of hunger daily : their
corpses filled the streets; and the survivors had not the
strength to bury the dead. On the 20th the news of the
battle of Abu Klea reached Kliartoum. The KngUsh were
coming at last. Hope rose ; every morning the Governor-
General assmed the townspeople that one day more would
see the end of, their sufferings; and night after night his
words were proved imtrue.

On the 28rd a rumour spread that a spy had arrived with

805

THE END OF GENERAL GORDON

letters, and that the English army was at hand. A merchant
found a piece of newspaper lying in the road, in which it
was stated that the strength of the relieving forces was
15,000 men. For a moment, hope flickered up again, only
to relapse once more. The rumour, the letters, the printed
paper, all had been contrivances of Gordon to inspire the
garrison with the courage to hold out. On the 25th, it was
obvious that the Arabs were preparing an attack, and a
deputation of the principal inhabitants waited upon the
Governor-General. But he refused to see them ; Bordeini
Bey was alone admitted to his presence. He was sitting
on a divan, and, as Bordeini Bey came into the room, he
snatched the fez from his head and flung it from him. “ What
more can I say ? ” he exclaimed, in a voice such as the
merchant had never heard before. ‘‘The people will no
longer believe me. I have told them over and over again
that help would be here, but it has never come, and now
they must see I teU them lies. I can do nothing more. Go,
and collect all the people you can on the lines, and make a
good stand. Now leave me to smoke these cigarettes.’*
Bordeini Bey knew then, he tells us, that Gordon Pasha was
in despair. He left the room, having looked upon the
Governor-General for the last time.

When the English force reached Metemmah, the Mahdi,
who had originally intended to reduce Khartoum to surrender
through starvation, decided to attempt its capture by assault.
The receding Nile had left one portion of the town’s circum-
ference imdefended : as the river withdrew, the rampart
had crumbled ; a broad expanse of mud was left between
the wall and the water, and the soldiers, overcome by hunger
and the lassitude of hopelessness, had trusted to the morass
to protect them, and neglected to repair the breach. Early
on the morning of the 26th, the Arabs crossed the river at
this point. The mud, partially dried up, presented no
obstacle ; nor did the ruined fortification, feebly maimed by
some half-dying troops. Resistance was futile, and it was
scarcely offered : the Mahdi’s army swarmed into Khartoum.

X

806

EMINENT VICTORIANS

Gordon bad long debated with himself what his action should
be at the supreme moment. “ I shall never (D.V.),” he had
told Sir Evelyn Baring, “ be taken alive.” He had had gun*
powder put into the cellars of the palace, so that the whdie
building might, at a moment’s notice, be blown into the air.
But then misgivings had come upon him ; was it not his duty
“to maintain the faith, and, if necessary, to suffer for it?” —
to remain a tortured and humiliated witness of his Lord
in the Mahdi’s chains ? The blowing up of the palace would
have, he thought, “ more or less the taint of suicide,” would
be, “in a way, taking things out of God’s hands.” He
remained imdecided ; and meanwhile, to be ready for every
contingency, he kept one of his little armomred vessels dose
at hand on the river, with steam up, day and night, to
transport him, if so he should decide, southward,* through the
enemy, to the recesses of Equatoria. The sudden appearance
of the Arabs, the complete collapse of the defence, saved
him the necessity of making up his mind. He had been on
the roof, in his dressing-gown, when the attack began ; and
he had only time to hurry to his bedroom, to slip on a white
uniform, and to seize up a sword and a revolver, before the
foremost of the assailants were in the palace. The crowd
was led by fom of the fiercest of the Mahdi’s followers — tall
and swarthy Dervishes, splendid in their many-coloured
jibbehs, their great swords drawn from their scabbards of
brass and velvet, their spears flourishing above their heads.
Gordon met them at the top of the staircase. For a moment,
there was a deathly pause, while he stood in silence, surveying
his antagonists. Then it is said that Taha Shahin, the
Dongolawi, cried in a loud voice, “ Mala’ oun elyom yomek I ”
(O curs^ wxe, your time is come), and plunged his spear
into the E n g l ishman’s body. His only reply was a gesture
of contempt. Another spear transfixed him; he fell,
the swords of the three other Dervishes instantly
him to death. Thus, if we are to believe the official
chroniclers, in the dignity of unresisting disdain, Genenl
Gordtm met his end. But ft is only fitting that the last

THE END OP GENERAL GORDON

807

moments of one whose whole life was passed in contradic*
tion should be involved in mystery and doubt. Other
witnesses told a very different story. The man whom they
saw die was not a saint but a warrior. With intrepidity,
with skill, with desperation, he flew at his enemies. When
his pistol was exhausted, he fought on with his sword ; he
forced his way almost to the bottom of the staircase ; and,
among a heap of corpses, only succumbed at length to the
sheer weight of the multitudes against him.

That morning, while Slatin Pasha was sitting in his
chains in the camp at Omdurman, he saw a group of Arabs
approaching, one of whom was carrying something wrapped
up in a cloth. As the group passed him, they stopped for
a moment, and railed at him in savage mockery. Then the
cloth was lifted, and he saw before him Gordon’s head. The
trophy was taken to the Mahdi : at last the two fanatics had
indeed met face to face. The Mahdi ordered the head to
be fixed between the branches of a tree in the public high-
way, and all who passed threw stones at it. The hawks of
the desert swept and circled about it — ^those very hawks
which the blue eyes had so often watched.

The news of the catastrophe reached England, and a great
outcry arose. The public grief vied with the public indigna-
tion. The Queen, in a letter to Miss Gordon, immediately
gave vent both to her own sentiments and those of the
nation. “How shall I write to you,” she exclaimed, “or
how shall I attempt to express what I feel ! To think of 3 rour
dear, noble, heroic Brother, who served his Country and his
Queen so truly, so heroically, with a self-sacrifice so edifying
to the World, not having been rescued. That the promises of
support were not fulfilled — which I so frequently and con-
stantly pressed on those who asked him to go — ^is to me grirf
ineafpreasiMe ! indeed, it has me made ill. . . . Would you
espress to your other sisters and your elder Brother my true
sympathy, and what I do so keeidy feel, the stain left upon
England for your dear Brother’s cruel, though heroic, fate 1 ”
Bi r^l;^, Miss Gordon presented the Queen with her brother’s

808

EMINENT VICTORIANS

Bible, which was placed in one of the corridors at Windsor,
open, on a white satin cushion, and enclosed in a ciystal
case. In the meanwhile, Gordon was acclaimed in every
newspaper as a national martyr ; state services were held In
his honour at Westminster and St. Paul’s; £20,000 was
voted to his family ; and a great sum of money was raised
by subscription to endow a charity in his memory. Wrath
and execration fell, in particular, upon the head of Mr.
Gladstone. He was little better tlian a murderer ; he was a
traitor; he was a heartless villain, who had been seen at
the play on the very night when Gordon’s death was an-
nounced. The storm passed ; but Mr. Gladstone had soon
to cope with a still more serious agitation. The cry was
raised on every side that the national honour would be
irreparably tarnished if the Mahdi were left in the peaceful
possession of Khartoum, and that the Expeditionary Force
should be at once employed to chastise the false prophet and
to conquer the Sudan. But it was in vain that the im-
perialists clamoured, in vain that Lord Wolseley wrote
several despatches, proving over and over again that to
leave the Mahdi unconquered must involve the ruin of
Egypt, in vain tiiat Lord Hartington at last discovered that
he had come to the same conclusion. The old man stood
firm. Just then, a crisis with Russia on the Afghan frontier
supervened; and Mr. Gladstone, pointing out that every
available soldier might be wanted at any moment for a
European war, withdrew Lord Wolseley and his army from
Egypt. The Russian crisis disappeared. The Mahdi remained
supreme lord of the Sudan.

And yet it was not with the Mahdi that the future lay.
Before six months were out, in the plenitude of his power,
he died, and the Khalifa Abdullahi reigned in his stead. The
future lay with Major Kitchener and his Maxim-Nordenfeldt
guns. Thirteen years later the Mahdi’s empire was abolished
for ever in the gigantic hecatomb of Omdurman ; after which
it was thought proper that a religious ceremony in honour
of General Gordon should be held at the Palace at Khartouin.

THE END OF GENERAL GORDON 809

The service was conducted by four dhaplains — of the Cathoh'c,
Anglican, Presbyterian, and Methodist persuasions — and
concluded with a performance of “Abide with me” — ^the
General’s favourite hymn — ^by a select company of Sudanese
buglers. Every one agreed that General Gordon had been
avenged at last. Who could doubt it? General Gordon
himself, possibly, fluttering, in some remote Nirvana, the
pages of a phantasmal Bible, might have ventured on a
satirical remark. But General Gordon had always been a
contradictious person — even a little off his head, perhaps,
though a hero ; and besides, he was no longer there to
contradict. ... At any rate, it had all ended very happily
— ^in a glorious slaughter of twenty thousand Arabs, a
vast addition to the British Empire, and a step in the
Peerage for Sir Evelyn Baring.

810

EMINENT VICTORIANS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

General Gk>rdon. Reflections in Palestine^ Letters, Khartoum Journals,
A, E. Hake. The Story of Chinese Gordon.

H. W. Gordon. Events in the Life of C, O. Gordon.

D. C. Boulger. Life of General Gordon,

Sir W. Butler. General Gordon,

Rev. R. H. Baines and C. E. Brown. Charles George Gordon / A Sketch,

A. Biov^s. Un Grand Aventurier,

Li Hung Chang. Memoirs*

Colonel Chaill^-Long. My Life in Four Continents,

Lord Cromer. Modem Egypt,

Sir R. Wingate. Mahdiism and the Sudan,

Sir R. Slatin. Fire and Sword in the Sudan.

J. Ohrwalder. Ten Years of Captivity in the Mahdi^s Camp,

C. Neufeld. A Prisoner of the KhaUefa.

Wilfrid Blunt. A Secret History of the' English Occupation of Egypt,

Gordon at Khartoum.

Winston Churchill. The River War.

F. Power. Letters from Khartoum.

Lord Morley. Life of Gladstone.

George W. Smalley. Mr. Gladstone. Harper's Magazine^ 1898.

B. Holland. Life of the Eighth Duke of Devonshire.

Lord Fitzmaurioe. Life of the Second Earl Granville.

S. Gwynn and Gertrude Tuckwell. Life of Sir Charles Dilke.

Arthur Rimbaud. Lettres,

G. F. Stevens. With Kitchener to Khartoum.

* The authenticity of the IMary contained in this book haa been disputed, notably
by Air. 3, O. P. Bland in his Id Fung Chang. (Constable. 1017.)

PBINTBP IN BNGLAND BY WaJUAM OZ.OWBS AND SONS, UMITBP, IMMIPON AND BNOOLBS.

For sonic Opinions on '‘^Eminent Victoi’ians^^*
see overleaf^

SOME OPINIONS ON ^‘EMINENT VICTOBIANS

Lytton Sfcrachey’s ‘Eminent Victorians* has had, I snpposo, the
most instant snooess that any book of account has won in this generation.
Some of Mr. Straohey’s incidental portraits are of astonishing brilliancy —
notably that of Mr. Gladstone, and the book is sure of long life. This it will
owe to its felicity of stylo and its finish and delicacy of moulding, no loss
than to its cynical wit and its perfectly serious and critical intention.*’

The Nation*

“ A brilliant and eztraordinarily witty book. Mr. Strachey’s method of
presenting his characters is both masterly and subtle. His purpose is to
penetrate into the most hidden depths of his sitters* characters. There is
something almost uncanny in the author’s detachment.”

The Times*

“ An unusually interesting volume in a department of literature which, in
England, has fallen to a grievously low level.”

Manchester Qmrdian*

“Four short biographies which are certainly equal to anything of the
kind which has been produced for a hundred years. He elucidates with con-
summate dexterity — the book is a masterpiece of its kind.”

Mr. J. 0. Squire, in Lcmd and Water*

“ A brilliant book has recently appeared which illustrates in very vigorous
and striking fashion the interval which seems to divide the twentieth century
from the nineteenth. Mr. Lytton Strachey’s book has attained a celebrity
quite remarkable for literary work produced in times of war. There is no
doubt as to its literary merits.”

Leading Article in The Daily Telegraph*

” Mr, Strachey’s subtle and suggestive art.”

Mr. AsgmWs Bomanes Lecture at Oxford*

LONDON : CHATTO dE WINDUS.

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